Biography

Carlos Ghosn is Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. He holds the same positions at both Renault and Nissan.

Biography

Hideaki Watanabe graduated from Keio University’s Faculty of Law in March 1989 and joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., the same year. In 2002, after more than a decade working exclusively for Nissan, he was appointed Manager, Renault-Nissan Powertrain Purchasing.

For the next seven years, Watanabe held various managerial roles within the Purchasing and Purchasing Strategy department, including Program Director for B-platform vehicles, before being appointed Managing Director of the Renault-Nissan Alliance in April 2009 in charge of zero emission vehicles.

Biography

Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., in April 1984 after graduating from Kyoto University with a Master’s Degree in Engineering. He has been with the company all his working life, spending time in Japan and North America contributing to the development of both the Nissan and Infiniti brands.

The first part of his career was spent in Japan, working in various areas of vehicle engineering before being transferred to the Nissan Technical Center North America in 2000. He became a Senior Manager in 2003 and President of NTCNA in 2004.

In 2008, Yamaguchi was appointed Corporate Vice President of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., in charge of a number of vital engineering divisions including R&D Engineering Management, Vehicle Test Technology Development and PV Product Development. In April 2011, he was appointed Corporate Vice President in charge of Infiniti Product Development.

In April 2012, he moved to the Renault-Nissan Alliance where he is responsible for Common Platform and Parts. He reports directly to Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn and functionally to Odile Desforges and Mitsuhiko Yamashita, respectively Executive Vice President of Renault and Nissan.

Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi was born on January 8, 1959.

Biography

Appointed as the Alliance Director in charge of the Strategic Cooperation with Daimler AG in May 2010, Jacques Verdonck started his career with Renault in 1992.

After an early career (1979-1983) with the French Ministry of Industry, where he was Secrétaire Général de la Direction de la Qualité et de la Sécurité Industrielle, Verdonck was appointed CEO of CERLAB in 1984, helping to develop partnerships between state-owned laboratories and laboratories in developing countries and also promoting French know-how in the fields of quality, certification and testing.

In 1992, he became Vice President, Cooperation and Strategy, Renault Trucks, where amongst various responsibilities he was charged with developing a partnership with ZF Friedrichshafen AG and the Irisbus joint venture with Iveco. In 1999, he was appointed Executive Vice President of Strategy and Product Development for Irisbus Holding SL.

Jacques Verdonck returned to Renault in April 2000 as Vice President, Planning and Strategy (Sales and Marketing) and by September 2001 had been appointed Vice President, Corporate and Strategic Planning, for the Renault Group. He oversaw the partnership with Avtovaz in Russia and the development of the Renault brand in Iran, India and Morocco, as well as negotiated the Strategic Cooperation between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG, a role which led directly to his current position.

Jacques Verdonck was born on November 22, 1954 and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris.

Biography

Toshiaki Otani is Managing Director of the Alliance Battery Business. He is also Senior Vice President in charge of the Global Zero Emission Business Unit and the Global Battery Business Unit at Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.

During his more than three decades at Nissan, Otani has worked for Nissan and its affiliates in Japan, Europe, North America and China. He joined Nissan in Japan in 1980, transferring to Nissan Motor Iberica S.A. in July 1995. In 2000, he was appointed as Group General Manager for Parts Purchasing, staying in Purchasing and Purchasing Strategy until April 2003, when he was appointed Vice President, Nissan North America Inc.

Two years later, in July 2005, he moved to China as Vice President of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., the joint venture between Dongfeng Motor Corporation and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. In April 2007, and alongside his Vice President role, Otani was appointed Managing Director of the Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company.

In April 2010, after nearly five years in China, Otani returned to Japan to take up a role as Corporate Vice President in charge of Nissan’s Global Battery Business before taking his present role two years later. He was also appointed Alliance Managing Director in 2010.

Otani was born on August 14, 1956 and is a graduate of Kyoto University’s Faculty of Economics.

Biography

Christian Mardrus, Managing Director of the Alliance CEO office, began his career in the French telecommunications industry before joining the Otis Elevator Group in 1991 after a period with accountancy firm Peat Marwick.

He joined Renault in November 1999 as Director of Sales Information Systems before being appointed Vice President Service within the Sales and Marketing Division in February 2002. He was made Director of the company’s French Sales Network in July 2004.

Four years later, in September 2008, he was appointed Chief Information Officer and joined Renault’s Management Committee as Senior Vice President before being appointed Managing Director of Alliance Global Logistics in June 2009.

Since June 2011, in addition to Alliance Logistics, he serves as Managing Director in charge of the Alliance CEO Office. As secretary of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Board, he manages a multicultural team in Paris, Yokohama and Amsterdam and oversees the continued evolution of the partnership.

Mardrus was born in France on March 18, 1959 and holds engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Corps Interministériel des Télécommunications in Paris.

Biography

Christian Vandenhende, in charge of purchasing for the Renault-Nissan Alliance, began his career in research at his alma mater, the University of Louvain in Belgium, before joining the automotive supply industry in 1985.

He worked for Saint Gobain and Valeo before joining Renault in 1999 as head of its Supplier Performance Analysis department. In March 2008, he was appointed Purchasing Organisation Director (Chassis) for the Renault-Nissan Alliance, rising to Senior Vice President, Purchasing in March 2009. At the same time he was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of the Renault-Nissan Purchasing Organisation.

In June 2009, he added the role of Alliance Director of Global Purchasing, tasked with accelerating Alliance purchasing synergies. He is also a member of the Renault Management and Operational Committees.

Christian Vandenhende was born in Belgium on August 30, 1961 and holds an engineering degree from the University of Louvain.
 

Biography

Hiromi Takaoka joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., in April 1982 after graduating from Aoyama Gakuin University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He has been with the company all his working life, spending time in Japan and Mexico contributing as the T&C engineer and a member of the Corporate Industrial Strategy planning staff.

The first part of his career was spent in the plant, working as a T&C Manufacturing Engineer in the Tochigi, Oppama and Murayama plants. After an expatriate experience in Mexico, he became the T&C Line Manager at the Murayama plant in 1997. Then through his variety of experience in strategic planning, he became General Manager of the Manufacturing Strategy Planning department in 2007.

In April 2009, Takaoka was appointed Regional Vice President of Nissan’s Tochigi plant, having to face major issues in his role as the INFINITI Plant Manager with the global economic crises (Lehman collapse) and the disastrous earthquake in eastern Japan on March 11th 2011.

In November 2011, he moved to the Renault-Nissan Alliance where he is responsible for Alliance Industrial Sourcing. He reports directly to Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn and functionally to Gerard Leclercq and Hidetoshi Imazu, Executive Vice President of Renault and Nissan respectively.

Hiromi Takaoka was born on May 16th, 1957.

Biography

Minoru Shinohara joined the Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in 1977 straight from University. He became a Senior Manager in the Corporate Planning Department in 1996, the first in a number of managerial roles at Nissan.

Between 1996 and 2004, he was variously Senior Manager, Deputy General Manager or General Manager in Powertrain Product Planning, Powertrain Operations and Advanced Vehicle Engineering. In April 2004, he was appointed Vice President in charge of the Nissan Research Center.

In April 2005, he was made a Senior Vice President in charge of Nissan’s Integrated Systems Planning Office at the same time as overseeing departments involved in Environmental and Safety Engineering, Technology Planning and Material Engineering. He also controlled the Advanced Vehicle Engineering and Electronics Engineering divisions.

A year later, in April 2006, he was appointed Senior Vice President in charge of the Technology Development Division as well as overseeing the Electronics and Power Electronics Engineering divisions.

He moved to his current role as Alliance Director of Research and Advanced Engineering in June 2009, where he is responsible for accelerating Alliance synergies in advanced technology development.

Minoru Shinohara was born in Japan in June 1952 and graduated from Kyoto University’s School of Engineering with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Biography

Appointed Director in January 2012, Isabelle Vieuille is the Alliance Economic Advisor. Her role is to contribute to the financial sustainability and efficient running of the Alliance through a pertinent economical approach.

She worked for Bull SA, a French information technology company, for 16 years in several financial and purchasing roles, before joining Renault in 2000.

Since then, she spent half of her career within Renault and half within Nissan. As Renault Supplier Account Manager first, in the non production purchasing department from 2000 to 2003, before moving to Nissan Europe in 2004, rising to non production Purchasing General Manager.

In June 2007, after three and a half years in this role, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she became Finance Director at Nissan North America.

Two years later, in June 2009, she returned to Renault, becoming Vice President in charge of a €25 billion purchasing budget for Group Purchasing Control. She joined the Renault-Nissan Alliance in January 2012.

Isabelle Vieuille was born in France on May 14, 1961 and achieved a Master’s degree in Business Management from the BEM Management School of Bordeaux.

Biography

Celso Guiotoko started his professional career in Information Technology in 1983 when he joined BRADESCO Brazilian bank before joining Andersen Consulting LLP in 1985 working in Sao Paulo, Chicago WHQ and Tokyo office.

In addition to his activities in the business world, from 1986 to 1988, he became Assistant Professor for Information Technology, at the Universidade Estadual de Sao Paulo where he also supervised the Internship Programme.

In 1996 he joined Toshiba America Electronic Components in North America as the Director of Information System, moving to i2 Technologies in Japan as the head of Consulting Service at the end of 1997.

Celso Guiotoko joined Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in May 2004 as Vice President in charge of the Global IS Division and was promoted to Corporate Vice President of the Division in April 2006.

In June 2009, he added the role of Managing Director in charge of IS/IT functions for the Renault-Nissan Alliance. His tasks are to maximise the synergies in IS/IT functions and identify potential synergies in Alliance business systems.

Celso Guiotoko was born in January 1959 in Brazil. He attended the Escola Politecnica – Civil Engineering and the Faculdade de Economia e Administracao – Accounting Science of the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Biography

Jérémie Papin is a Director of the Renault-Nissan Alliance and responsible for the financial strategy of the Alliance. Papin reports directly to Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of the Renault Nissan Alliance.

In his role working for the Alliance, Papin’s responsibilities include financial analysis, investor relations, strategic partnerships and new ventures across the Alliance, including specific projects for each company.

Papin started his career in 1999 as a European equity analyst (specializing in the automotive sector) for Deutsche Bank, based in Paris. In 2002 he was appointed head of the automotive sector for the European equity team of Lehman Brothers, based in London.

In 2008, he joined Nomura Bank in London as head of the automotive sector, a position he held until September 2009, when he joined the Renault-Nissan Alliance. In his current role, Papin divides his time between the Renault and Nissan offices in France and Japan as well as in Amsterdam, at the offices of Renault Nissan b.v. (RNBV)

Jérémie Papin was born in Paris, France and has dual French and American citizenship. He graduated from Sciences Po in Paris with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and political science and a master’s degree in corporate finance. He is married with one son and resides in Paris, France.