NISSAN Motor Company has promoted chief planning officer Ivan Espinosa to representative executive officer, president and CEO, succeeding Makoto Uchida from April 1 this year.

The change comes as part of a senior management shake-up at Nissan following the breakdown of merger talks with Honda.

Ivan Espinosa

Guillaume Cartier, chief performance officer and chair of the Management Committee for the Africa, Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania (AMIEO) region, which includes Australia, will have an expanded role that includes global marketing and customer experience.

Eiichi Akashi, currently corporate vice president (CVP) of vehicle planning and vehicle component engineering, will become chief technology officer and executive officer, succeeding Kunio Nakaguro.

Teiji Hirata, currently CVP of vehicle production engineering and development, will take on the role of chief production officer and executive officer, responsible for manufacturing and supply chain management, succeeding Hideyuki Sakamoto.

Jeremie Papin, chief financial officer, was also appointed executive officer.

Nissan executives to retain their positions include chair of the management committee for China Stephen Ma, chief quality officer Mitsuro Antoku, chief human resources officer Toru Ihara and, Christian Meunier, who chairs of the management committee for the Americas.

Makoto Uchida and Hideyuki Sakamoto will retain their directorship positions until the Nissan annual general meeting of shareholders in June.

Makoto Uchida

Other key management appointments include Shohei Yamazaki, chair of the management committee for Japan-ASEAN, who will have an expanded role that includes oversight of affiliate companies.

Tatsuzo Tomita, currently the CVP of Product Development No. 2, will succeed Eiichi Akashi’s R&D responsibilities and will also take on the additional role of chief of Total Delivered Cost (TdC) Transformation, reporting to Espinosa. Manabu Sakane, currently CVP of Purchasing, will become chief of Strategy Acceleration, reporting to Espinosa.

In addition to Kunio Nakaguro, Hideyuki Sakamoto, and Makoto Uchida, chief brand and customer officer Asako Hoshino and chief strategy and corporate affairs officer Hideaki Watanabe will step down from their current roles at the end of March.

Ivan Espinosa’s career with Nissan has spanned various leadership roles. His most recent position, from April 2024, was chief planning officer, overseeing global product planning, global program management, the motorsports business unit, and corporate MI.

Prior to that, he served as senior vice-president, with responsibilities including global product strategy and product planning division, global program management, Nismo performance division and the motorsports business unit.

Earlier roles included vice-president, global product strategy and product planning division, program director, and various positions in product planning and marketing, both in Thailand and Mexico.