Less than a month after Mary Barra became the first woman to head General Motors’ global product team, Nissan Americas has named Carla Bailo – a former GM executive – to head research and development from 1 April.
Bailo will replace current Nissan Technical Center president Motohiro Matsumura who is returning to Japan for an unannounced new post.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Bailo is currently OEM business unit divisional general manager for Nissan Motor in Japan, responsible for OEM relationships for vehicle, powertrain, technology and intellectual property business worldwide. She was recovery programme director through the financial crisis and also the programme director responsible for Nissan SUVs worldwide.
Bailo has also worked in Nissan’s vehicle engineering and vehicle programme management and was assistant chief vehicle engineer on the Sentra and Quest lines in the US.
She joined Nissan from General Motors in 1989 as a vehicle testing engineer.
After relocating to Michigan, Bailo will be responsible for all of Nissan’s vehicle engineering and development operations in that state, Arizona, Mexico and Brazil.
