Renault - In The Driver's Seat
Smiling broadly and looking dapper in a powder blue shirt, pin-striped suit and bright red tie, Renault ceo Carlos Ghosn doesn't look like your typical corporate hatchet man. Back in 1999, however, Ghosn was dubbed the "samurai" and "cost killer" at Nissan Motor in Japan. As the newly appointed president, he began closing plants, slashing over $20 billion in debt, and eliminating over 20,000 jobs to turn the moribund company profitable. Many observers — especially unions — expected similar tough love in early February, when Ghosn unveiled his ambitious four-year business plan for Renault, which has had an increasingly close joint partnership with Nissan since 1999. But so far, Ghosn's quality-enhancing, production-boosting, profit-focused project has avoided layoffs. "Renault is not in the same critical situation Nissan was, so the methods we're using to improve things are different," says Ghosn during an interview at Renault's Boulogne-Billancourt headquarters on the southwestern edge of Paris.
He's the first Renault president selected purely for his business record, rather than for his political contacts. "If they'd wanted a yes-man at Renault," he says, "I wouldn't have been named ceo."
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