2 more Nissan executives leave
DETROIT: Nissan Motor has announced that two senior executives, its North American sales chief and the executive charged with leading its high-end Infiniti brand, have resigned in the latest in a string of departures from the Japanese automakers North American unit.
Nissan said Wednesday that Mark McNabb, senior vice president for sales and marketing, would be replaced after less than nine months on the job by Brian Carolin, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Nissans European arm.
The changes will take effect April 1, said the unit, which is based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Nissan did not immediately announce a replacement for McNabb in his role as global head of its Infiniti brand.
Nissan has seen executives at all levels depart since it moved its U.S. headquarters to Nashville from California in 2006. Executives who have left in the past few months include the former Nissan division manager and the companys vice president for marketing.
A Nissan spokesman, Fred Standish, said McNabb was leaving the company for personal reasons.
Nissan also said that Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, who heads Nissans technical center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, would be promoted to a senior position at the automakers headquarters in Tokyo. He will be succeeded by Motohiro Matsumura, an executive at Nissans Tokyo technical center.
Carolin joined Nissan in 1984 in Britain and has been charged with marketing the Infiniti brand across Europe this year. The automaker said it would split his current position as senior vice president of sales and marketing into two roles for successors.
Simon Thomas, vice president of European sales, will be promoted to sales chief for Western Europe. Toru Saito, managing director for the region comprising Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, will head Eastern European sales operations.
Nissan, 44 percent owned by Renault of France, posted a 4.5 percent gain in U.S. light vehicle sales in 2007, giving it a U.S. market share of almost 7 percent.
Nissans sales gains came in a year when all three Detroit-based automakers suffered weaker sales, hit by a slumping housing market, credit market strains and higher gasoline prices.
But in the first two months of this year, Nissan sold 3 percent fewer vehicles in the United States than in the same period a year earlier. Analysts expect industrywide U.S. auto sales to fall for the third consecutive year in 2008.
