British luxury carmaker Aston Martin has poached a Nissan executive to be its new chief executive officer.
The company, which is famous for being the preferred vehicle brand for James Bond, has just announced its hiring of Nissan Chief Planning Officer Andy Palmer as its new CEO. The appointment ends a leadership void for the company that lasted for nine months. The previous CEO, Ulrich Bez, left the company in late 2013 after 13 years as Aston Martin's head.
"We're delighted that Andy will join us as our new CEO at this important time at Aston Martin. Andy's wealth of experience on the global automotive stage in marketing and sales, engineering and technology, and luxury and brand management will be instrumental in taking Aston Martin forward through its most significant and ambitious period of investment to date," the company said in a press release.
The departure of Palmer from adds to worries that the executives supporting Carlos Ghosn, who heads the Nissan-Renault alliance, are starting to make an exodus. The movement started in August of last year with the exit of former Renault chief operating officer Carlos Tavares. Tavares left Renault to become CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroen. It continued last July when Johan de Nysschen, the head of Nissan's Infiniti division, took a job as an executive vice president at General Motors.
Palmer, who started his tenure at Nissan in 1991, has held the positions of chief planning officer, executive committee member and executive vice president at the company. He also served as the chairman of Nissan's Infiniti brand. He will be replaced by Philippe Klein, who was the executive vice president for product planning and programs at Renault.
According to Reuters, the reason for the departure of some Nissan executives may be due to Ghosn's long tenure as the head of the company. Ghosn, who has been the leader of Nissan for the past 15 years, is said to be blocking the career trajectory of his lieutenants just by staying in his position.
"Against that backdrop, there tends to be more moves as people look for change," Nakanishi said. "For Nissan, Andy's departure is a blow and the question is what will happen to the continuity of Nissan management."
Aston Martin is controlled by Italian private equity firm Investindustrial, which has a 37.5 percent stake. The company earlier announced that it will invest more than $827 million dollars for developing new models by 2017.
