Nissan has announced a number of executive changes for its Americas regions with effect April 1st, including several promotions for supply chain management and logistics.
Mark Sharp, currently director of supply chain management at Nissan North America, has been promoted to a new position as senior director of Alliance New Product Quality Procedure.
Chris Styles (pictured left) has been promoted to a newly created position as senior director of logistics for Nissan North America. Previously director of logistics, Styles has now assumed responsibility across Nissan’s Mexican operations, along with the US and Canada.
Styles was most recently director of logistics with main responsibilities in the US and Canada. Previous to that he had been director of purchasing for Nissan in Mexico as well as director of purchasing for logistics and aftermarket parts for the Americas.
Ben Shain (pictured right), who was previously senior manager of logistics for Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, is now director of logistics, taking over Styles's role and still reporting to him. In the past Shain had also been senior manager of vehicle logistics at Nissan North America.
The new positions and added support for logistics reflect the growing importance of Mexico for Nissan, as well as its integration with operations in the US. In November last year, Nissan opened its third plant in Mexico and second in Aguascalientes, which has an initial capacity of 175,000 vehicles. The plant was the first phase in a $2 billion investment in Aguascalientes, which will bring production capacity in Mexico to 1m vehicles annually in the mid-term, from 850,000 today.
The plant includes a rail yard for moving finished vehicles and will include an adjacent supplier park.
Also at Nissan, Kim Less, currently senior manager of parts and service in the supply chain management division, has also been promoted to director of parts and distribution.
Effective April 1st, Renault and Nissan have brought together a number of departments that had previously been separate, including supply chain management.
Click here for a full list of Nissan executive changes.
