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Nissan Mexicana Makes Management Changes


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MEXICO CITY, México May 23, 2008; Effective July 1, 2008 Nissan Mexicana will make senior management and organizational changes to better integrate NMEX’s growing manufacturing and allied operations into Nissan’s regional operations.

Shoichi Miyatani, president and general director, NMEX, will return to Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (NML) as corporate vice president, General Overseas Markets (GOM), where his primary focus will be Latin America. Growth in the GOM region is one of the breakthroughs of Nissan GT 2012, where Mr. Miyatani will play an important role.

Julio Panamá, currently vice president, Sales and Marketing, NMEX, will become president and general director, NMEX. To further strengthen Nissan’s leadership in the Mexican domestic market, Mr. Panamá will continue to lead the sales and marketing team. The administration and finance support functions will jointly report to Mr. Panamá and their respective Americas functional leaders located in Nashville, Tenn. Mr. Panamá will report to Mr. Hiroto Saikawa, chairman, Management Committee-Americas.

NMEX Manufacturing, led by Armando Ávila, vice president, will be integrated into the regional manufacturing, supply chain, purchasing and total customer satisfaction organization under the leadership of Bill Krueger, senior vice president, Nissan Americas. This recognizes the growing importance of NMEX’s manufacturing operations as a key element in achieving Nissan’s regional and global objectives.

Research and development operations in Mexico are being enhanced in line with the strengthening of the manufacturing and allied functions. In view of further integration of NMEX Research and Development (R&D) into the regional organization, Katsumi Yamada, director, R&D, NMEX, will report directly to Motohiro Matsumura, president of Nissan Technical Center-North America (NTCNA) located in Farmington Hills, Mich.

“I would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Miyatani for his contribution to NMEX and wish him continued success in his new assignment”, commented Hiroto Saikawa, chairman, MC Americas. “I anticipate strong contributions from Mr. Panamá, Mr. Ávila and Mr. Yamada to NMEX and to the region”.

Nissan Mexicana was established in Mexico in 1961. It has corporate, marketing and sales, manufacturing, distribution and design facilities in the cities of Aguascalientes, Cuernavaca, Mexico and Toluca. At present it employs over 9,000 people. In 2007 it sold over 214,000 vehicles in Mexico with a market share of 19.5% and produced more than 496,000 units for the domestic and export markets.