Yesterday, I sat down with Vincent Cobee, head of Datsun, to discuss his plans for Nissan’s decidedly non-upscale brand. In the middle of the discussion, Cobee mused that “Nissan has become the breeding ground for top management of luxury car makers.” And right he was.
- 12 hours later, it was announced that former Nissan comms chief Jeff Kuhlman would take over as Chief Communications Officer of Bentley Motors in the Americas. Kuhlman, who just bought a house in Colorado, will have to move to the Washington, DC, suburbs of Herndon, VA, a familiar neighborhood for Jeff, who ran Audi’s PR before going to Nissan in Yokohama. His career move follows a by now familiar pattern.
- A year ago, Nissan’s Simon Sproule signed on as comms chief of supercar maker Aston Martin. Sproule had left Nissan half a year earlier for Tesla, where he quickly clashed with mercurial Musk.
- Sproule followed the call of Aston Martin’s CEO Andy Palmer. Andy was second-in-command of Nissan before he left Yokohama for Gaydon, Warwickshire.
- The man who started the recent trend towards top-of-the-line carmakers was Johan de Nysschen, who last year left Nissan’s Infiniti to head Cadillac.
Luxury car makers, if you have a void in your upper echelons, start your calls with +81-45