I reckon this week’s autobiz surprise out of left field was the almost simultaneous announcements that Nissan Motor chief planning officer Andy Palmer would leave the automaker and return to his homeland as the new CEO of Aston Martin.
I note with some satisfaction that, according to his Wikipedia entry (not always to be trusted, but I’m on deadline), Palmer is also a native of my adopted UK home town and I’d suggest he is the sort of top British industry exec the Society of Motor Manufacturers (whose chief executive, Mike Hawes, never misses a chance to urge media to encourage youngsters to consider a career in the booming UK motor industry) should be holding up as a ‘this is where you could end up’ poster boy for recruitment.
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Along with fellow former Nissan UK executive, Sir Ian Gibson who, if memory serves, was a top Ford manufacturing man before moving to Nissan as it established its uber-productive north east England plant in the early 1990s, Palmer rose very high in Nissan before jumping ship to the bespoke sportscar maker in Gaydon, Warwickshire, pretty much next door to a large Jaguar Land Rover facility and the Heritage Motor Centre car museum, as it happens. It’s still relatively rare for a Westerner to make it very far up the tree at a Japanese automaker – apart from Palmer and Gibson at Nissan, I recall Ford’s Mark Fields at Mazda and Toyota Motor Sales USA’s Jim Press, who got as high as senior managing director and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor – and was the first non-Japanese member of that automaker’s board of directors (Gibson also made Nissan’s board) – before returning to Chrysler to help it through bankruptcy and assist Sergio Marchionne with the merger with Fiat.
Hallowed company indeed. The best of British, Mr Palmer.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, deputy editor, just-auto.com
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