- Jurors praise CEO’s leadership during Nissan turnaround and advocacy of zero-emission vehicles 

- Ghosn becomes first person from auto industry, and fourth person overall, to win prestigious award for sustained leadership through multiple business cycles

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (9 October 2012) -- Carlos Ghosn has become the first person in the auto industry, and the fourth person overall, to win a “lifetime achievement award” from the Strategic Management Society, a non-profit group that promotes ethical and strategic business stewardship.

At the awards ceremony in Prague today, the jurors called Mr. Ghosn a “truly outstanding corporate strategist and global leader whose impact on strategic thinking will go way beyond the industry he is involved in.”

Renault-Nissan CEO and Chairman Carlos Ghosn becomes the fourth person to get a lifetime achievement award from the Strategic Management Society, granted Oct. 8 by Jay Barney, SMS president and a business professor at the University of Utah in the United States. The society is a global group of business executives, consultants and academics who promote ethical and strategic business stewardship.

The jurors selected Mr. Ghosn for, among other reasons, his leadership during the Nissan turnaround starting in 1999 and his advocacy of zero-emission vehicles.

According to the nomination letter, Mr. Ghosn “has become one of the most transformational global leaders of our times, impacting not only the companies that he has managed but also the industries in which he has worked as well as our broader knowledge of global strategy and management.”

“It’s a true honor to accept this award –on behalf of my colleagues at Renault and Nissan and on behalf of the global auto industry,” Ghosn said. “We have a unique window to demonstrate that our industry can help drive the change toward a more sustainable planet, where people have more equal access to personal mobility and the opportunity it brings. We are seizing this moment.”

The Chicago-based Strategic Management Society is a group of about 3,000 business experts from around the world. The Lifetime Achievement Award is not an annual award but a special designation based on the following criteria:

• sustained strategic leadership and innovation during multiple business cycles
• strategic impacts beyond the nominee’s specific field
• influence and impact in academia, including in leading business schools and scholarly journals

Only three other people have earned a lifetime achievement award from the Strategic Management Society:

• 2011: Romano Prodi, Former President of the European Commission 
• 2003: Herb Kelleher, Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Southwest Airlines 
• 2001: Andrew Grove, Former CEO and current Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation 

PDF: 

Ghosn_wins_SMS_lifetime_achievement.pdf