New Nissan CEO Carlos Tavares

UPDATE BELOW REGARDING CARLOS TAVARES AS NISSAN CEO

Cool Springs is excited to learn Nissan is about to make a huge announcement!

Current Nissan Motors CEO and President Carlos Ghosn is stepping aside and being replaced by Carlos Tavares.

This big auto industry news has been confirmed with our Nashville and Portuguese sources.  As most are aware, Nissan Americas is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.

Nissan insiders have kept the it close to the vest, but the announcement is starting to leak almost as fast as the BP oil spill.

Carlos Tavares is presently the Executive Vice President of Nissan Americas Operations.

After Nissan relocated operations to Tennessee, the general sentiment has been that Nissan quality and customer service had suffered a decline.

Since Tavares took control of Nissan Americas region and under his leadership, Nissan has increased market share in addition to improving efficiency and customer service.

Carlos Ghosn

At the present moment, Carlos Ghosn is CEO and President of Nissan Global, in addition to being CEO and President of Renault of France.  Ghosn will be taking the Nissan hat off very soon and focusing on Renault, which like every auto maker was hard hit during this economic crisis.  Ghosn has been in the headlines recently, for earning $9.8 million in annual compensation for 2009, making him one of the highest paid executive of any Japanese company, including Sony.

Carlos Ghosn comic book

The Renault Nissan alliance also just took on Daimler as a partner.  Rumor is the Renault Nissan alliance is now looking for an American automaker to join.  This corporate leadership shift gives Ghosn more time to focus on the alliance.  Ghosn was just reelected to serve another four year term at Renault as CEO and President.

Ghosn started at Nissan as Chief Operating Officer in June 1999, then became president in 2000 and was named chief executive officer in 2001.  He enjoys near cult status in Japan with his life story having been turned into a comic book series.

A Japanese manga character has even been developed based on Mr. Ghosn’s life.

Carlos Tavares

An executive who has not yet reached comic book or manga status, is a Portuguese native whose weekend passion is race car driving.  Tavares is well known within the automotive industry for his driven, focused and results oriented management style.  He left Renault and joined Nissan in 2004.

In February 2009, Nissan announced that Carlos Tavares was moving to North America to be the first Nissan Executive Vice President to reside in the United States.

Carlos Tavares has served as Executive Vice President of Nissan Americas Operations.  Mr. Tavares also served as an Executive Vice President, Design, Product Planning and Corporate Planning of Nissan Motor Co Ltd.  Tavares was responsible for Corporate Planning, Product Planning, Market Intelligence and LCV Business at Nissan Motors.

How ironic is it, that the two business leaders to make it to the top of a Japanese company are both named Carlos and speak Portuguese?  It’s a small world!

UPDATE: We’ve been told Carlos Tavares will finally be replacing Carlos Ghosn on or around March 31 2011, the end of Nissan’s fiscal year.  Automobile recalls and other house cleaning are supposedly being taken care before Tavares becomes Nissan CEO, so he is able to start with a clean slate.