Nissan’s Mark McNabb To Depart the Company
March 12, 2008

By Michelle Krebs

Nissan North America has confirmed Mark C. McNabb, who returned to the automaker last July as senior vice president of sales and marketing, will leave the auto company for personal reasons on April 1.

Rumors of his imminent departure had been swirling in recent weeks. And some speculation has McNabb going to an unnamed Detroit car company.

 

In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Nissan said Brian Carolin, currently senior vice president, sales and marketing, Nissan Europe, will succeed McNabb and be based at the company's headquarters in Tennessee.

The company further announced that Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, currently president, Nissan Technical Center North America  will be promoted to a soon-to-be-announced senior position at Nissan’s global headquarters in Tokyo. Motohiro Matsumura, currently general manager, vehicle test department, Nissan Technical Center based in Japan, will succeed Yamaguchi as president of Nissan’s North American engineering organization in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

McNabb worked at Nissan for nearly 20 years, left for a short stint at Mercedes-Benz and returned to Nissan last summer to head sales and marketing. Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn supposedly lured him back to Nissan because he was unhappy with the automaker’s lackluster sales performance despite numerous new-product launches. Indeed, sales had flattened during the 18 months McNabb was absent from Nissan. Dealers complained the company had failed to put enough marketing and advertising support behind the new-product launches.

In addition, Nissan was still dealing with the after effects of some of its rocky new product launches. Initial quality was not up to snuff on Nissan's large trucks and SUVs when launched from its new plant in Mississippi a few years ago.

In addition, half of the company’s sales and marketing staff had quit Nissan when it moved from California to its new headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. McNabb’s first departure from Nissan, in fact, coincided with the company’s move to Tennessee.

Upon his return, McNabb moved swiftly, sweeping out the old and bringing in the new. Included in his sweep was Jan Thompson, one of the auto industry's top female marketing executives. She was replaced by ex-Ford marketer Ben Poore.

Mixed — and Costly — Results

Nissan's recent sales performance has been mixed, and costly.

Nissan closed 2007, which showed a drop for the industry, with a 4.5 percent improvement in sales from the previous year for its Nissan and Infiniti divisions. So far for 2008, despite a dip in sales along with the industry's lower sales, Nissan is enjoying its highest market share since 2002 at 7.4 percent, compared with 4.4 percent for the full year of 2002.

However, higher market share is being driven, in part, by high incentive spending. Nissan is spending nearly double that of its prime Japanese competitors.

		Market Share	Total Cost of Incentives
2002	Nissan	4.4%	$875
2003	Nissan	4.8%	$1,156
2004	Nissan	5.9%	$1,518
2005	Nissan	6.4%	$1,776
2006	Nissan	6.2%	$2,314
2007	Nissan	6.7%	$2,050
2008	Nissan	7.4%	$2,135

Source: Edmunds

On the plus side, Nissan’s redesigned Murano, being heavily advertised on television including a Super Bowl spot, is matching the sales success of the original. Its Versa is riding the wave of higher subcompact sales, spurred by high gas prices. Still, it is the Altima that carries the day for Nissan; in fact, Nissan probably is too reliant on the Altima on the car side. Meantime, the once bread-and-butter Maxima has been allowed to languish on the vine. A new version goes on sale this summer, with a diesel model -- Nissan's first -- being added in 2010.

The Infiniti premium division’s new G Coupe is continuing strong this year, with an 80 percent gain in February and 90 percent year-to-date. Infiniti’s giant QX56 bucked the trend of lower large-SUV sales with a 17 percent gain in February.

However, Nissan’s trucks and SUVs have fared poorly in the past year, in part because those segments have taken a nosedive as gas prices have skyrocketed. The Nissan Titan saw a 40 percent sales decline in February for a 35 percent year-to-date drop. The Pathfinder saw a 28 percent slide in February, Xterra dropped 30 percent and Armada fell 31 percent. The Quest minivan dropped 54 percent to just 1,223 sales in February.

McNabb Bio
McNabb first joined Nissan in 1986 and spent the next nearly 20 years in numerous sales, marketing and management posts in North American and Japan. Between February 2006 and January 2007, McNabb worked for Mercedes-Benz of America first as vice president of marketing and then as vice president of sales and marketing.

Upon his return last summer to Nissan, he became senior vice president, sales and marketing for Nissan North America Inc., overseeing all marketing and sales functions for the Nissan and Infiniti divisions, including direction of the planning and implementation of all sales and marketing strategies. He was a member of Management Committee-Americas, the key decision-making body for Nissan in North and Central America and Mercosur. He also was corporate vice president in charge of global operations for the Infiniti brand.

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