Nissan Global to have a Mexican CEO: Iván Espinosa

Mexican Iván Espinosa will become CEO of Nissan Global as of April 1, replacing Makoto Uchida, at a critical moment for the automotive sector, which has been threatened by US tariffs. He will take the reins of the Japanese company's operations, which is facing major financial challenges.

During a three-way appointment, the still director of Product Planning at Nissan Mexicana was assigned the CEO and president of Nissan Global, for which he pledged to work to “bring stability and growth to the Japanese company,” which is mired in serious financial problems.

Since last year it has been announced that the automaker would enter a bankruptcy crisis and analysts project that it has less than a year to correct some financial failures, so it had sought alliances with Honda and in recent days with Tesla.

Makoto Uchida, Nissan's global CEO, confirmed -a few days ago- his intention to lay off at least 9,000 employees worldwide and reduce the brand's global production rate by 20 percent.

The possible bankruptcy of Nissan threatens to cut the salaries of all members of senior management, in addition, the launch of new models will be postponed and about 10.02% of Nissan's shares in Mitsubishi will be sold.

During the announcement of the Mexican as the new head of Nissan, he was asked about his plans and although he avoided going into details -according to international news agencies-, Espinosa responded that Nissan is strengthening its production lines in the United States and polishing its partnership with the Chinese automaker Dongfeng, so that “new news on this matter will be announced soon”, he said. It is also mentioned that Japanese authorities are pressuring Nissan to resume its alliance with Honda.

There are estimates that the third largest Japanese automaker estimates net losses of 80 billion yen (about 498 million euros). Within the framework of the appointment, Uchida praised the Mexican, describing him as “a real car guy”.

Iván Espinosa holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), and joined Nissan in 2003.