Senior Nissan Executive Departs -- WSJ
November 02 2019 - 3:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Sean McLain
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (November 2, 2019).
TOKYO -- Nissan Motor Co. said a senior executive in charge of
communications and government affairs was leaving, part of a
management shake-up ahead of the arrival of a new chief executive
on Dec. 1.
The departing executive, Hitoshi Kawaguchi, was a key player in
the secret Nissan investigation that led to the arrest of former
Chairman Carlos Ghosn and worked with Japanese government officials
in resisting moves by Nissan's partner, Renault SA of France, for a
closer alliance, according to internal emails from last year and
people familiar with Mr. Kawaguchi's role.
Nissan declined to comment on Mr. Kawaguchi's departure and
declined to make him available for comment.
Nissan directors blamed Mr. Kawaguchi, in his role leading
communications, for not stopping leaks to the Japanese press in
recent months, according to people familiar with the board's
thinking. The board was angry that the outline of Nissan's
April-June quarterly results announcement, in which the company
reported a sharp drop in earnings and plans for thousands of
layoffs around the world, appeared in the Nikkei newspaper before
it was released to investors, one of the people said.
"We said that this is destroying the company," this person said.
"We want to have much better control and communication, and the guy
in charge of communication was Kawaguchi."
In October, Nissan named a new chief executive officer, Makoto
Uchida, to replace Hiroto Saikawa, who was ousted in September. On
Friday, Nissan's board met and agreed that Mr. Uchida as well as
the car maker's new chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta would
start their jobs Dec. 1, a month earlier than expected.
Some directors had pushed to move forward Mr. Uchida's start
date, given Nissan's falling sales and profit. Mr. Uchida attended
a meeting Wednesday where the heads of Nissan, Renault and the
third alliance partner, Mitsubishi Motors Corp., met to hammer out
strategy for the coming year.
Nissan's personnel overhaul also included a decision last month
to take away the responsibilities of Hari Nada, who was previously
in charge of legal affairs. Mr. Nada, who remains at Nissan, was
one of the executives who secretly cooperated with Japanese
prosecutors ahead of Mr. Ghosn's arrest last November. Mr. Ghosn,
who faces charges of financial wrongdoing, has said he is
innocent.
Initially, Mr. Kawaguchi, the government-relations and
communications chief, had been slated to take over Mr. Nada's
responsibilities. Now that Mr. Kawaguchi is leaving, those
responsibilities will be handled by a group of other executives, a
Nissan spokeswoman said.
Nissan said Hiroshi Karube, the chief financial officer, would
retire and be replaced by Stephen Ma, who previously worked under
Mr. Uchida, the new CEO, when both were at Nissan affiliate
Dongfeng Motor Co. in China.
Write to Sean McLain at sean.mclain@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 02, 2019 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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