The executive tasked with leading a recovery at Nissan Motor Co Ltd said he had decided to resign just weeks into his new job, a move that could disrupt the automaker’s push to turn the corner on scandal and slumping sales, Trend reports citing Reuters.
Jun Seki, Nissan’s vice chief operating officer and a former contender for chief executive, told Reuters he was leaving to become the president of Nidec Corp, a Kyoto-based manufacturer of automotive components and precision motors.
He will likely depart in January after three decades at Nissan, including a stint heading its China business.
“I love Nissan and I feel bad about leaving the turnaround work unfinished, but I am 58 years old, and this is an offer I could not refuse. It’s probably my last chance to lead a company too,” he said in a brief interview.
“It’s not about money. In fact, I will take a financial hit since Nissan pays us well,” Seki said. He declined to elaborate further.
Nissan and Nidec declined to comment.
Seeking to roll back some of the costly expansion under ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn, Nissan has embarked on wide-ranging turnaround plan.
That plan, which began in April, is now on track to generate a cumulative few hundred billion yen in cost cuts and operational efficiency gains by the year to March 2022, according to two Nissan sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. One hundred billion yen is roughly equal to $915 million.
Adding to concerns about disruption among Nissan’s top management, the sources said that Seki, Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta and Chief Executive Makoto Uchida have so far failed to gel as a team after being named to their posts in October.
They officially took over on Dec. 1.
“There was no instant, cohesive chemistry achieved by those appointments,” one of the sources said.
Gupta and Uchida were not immediately available for comment.
Seki’s resignation could further complicate Nissan’s relationship with top shareholder Renault SA. Seki recently worked in Paris for a year and was seen as relatively close to the French automaker.