Who is Ivan Espinosa?
Ivan Espinosa,
who is currently serving as the chief planning officer of the Japanese carmaker, has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from ITESM (Tecnológico de Monterrey) in 2001.
Espinosa has an impressive track record at Nissan. After joining the company in 2003 as a product manager in Nissan Mexico’s planning division, he worked his way up to important roles within the organization.
In 2006, he was named General Manager of Nissan
Mexico, where he served for over two years. Later, in 2009, he was appointed Overseas Program Director of the ASEAN region in Thailand.
He returned to Mexico in 2010 as Director of Product Planning, where he remained until 2014 when he was promoted to Vice President of Product Strategy and Planning for Nissan Europe.
After being appointed as a corporate vice president in 2017, he was promoted to senior vice president in 2019, where he served until 2024. Since April 2024, he has been the Chief Planning Officer at Nissan’s Japanese headquarters.
He has overseen product planning and development initiatives and helped shape Nissan’s future vehicle lineup and electrification strategy, making him an important player in determining the automaker’s future path.
According to Christopher Richter, Japan auto analyst at brokerage CLSA, “He’s a very passionate product guy. I think it sends a good signal that Nissan wants to give product a higher priority because the Nissan brand has been drifting for a long time and not really standing for that much, and so putting a strong product guy in charge, could be interesting.”
According to earlier reports, probable successors for the post included Chief Financial Officer Jeremie Papin, Chief Planning Officer Ivan Espinosa and Chief Performance Officer Guillaume Cartier.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
