Speaker

Carlos GHOSN

Chairman and CEO - Renault-Nissan Alliance

Carlos Ghosn is chairman and chief executive officer of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, one of the world’s largest automotive groups.  Mr. Ghosn also heads France’s Renault Group and Japan’s Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., two automakers with combined revenues of €129 billion.

In addition, Mr. Ghosn oversees the Alliance’s majority interest in the joint venture that controls AVTOVAZ, Russia’s largest automaker and manufacturer of Lada.

Renault, Nissan and AVTOVAZ together sold more than 8.5 million vehicles in 2015 – more than one in 10 cars worldwide. The Alliance companies combined employ more than 423,000 people in nearly 200 countries.

Mr. Ghosn has been the industry’s leading advocate for sustainable transportation; Renault and Nissan are the first automakers to have launched a range of affordable zero-emission cars and commercial vehicles. Through early 2016, the Alliance companies cumulatively had sold more than 330,000 electric vehicles – accounting for about half of all EVs on the road today.

Mr. Ghosn joined Nissan as chief operating officer in 1999, became its president in 2000 and chief executive officer in 2001. He was the lead architect of the Nissan Revival Plan, which brought the company out of a severe economic crisis in the late ‘90s and back to profitability in 2000.

In 2005, Mr. Ghosn became chief executive officer of Renault, becoming the first person to run two Fortune Global 500 companies simultaneously. In 2009, he added the title of chairman of the board of Renault. From June 2013 to June 2016, he served as chairman of AVTOVAZ.

Renault and Nissan enjoy the most productive and longest-lasting cross-cultural partnership in automotive history. The Alliance also has significant strategic collaborations with Daimler of Germany, China’s Dongfeng Motor and Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors.

The Alliance’s top 10 markets in 2015 were the United States, China, France, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Brazil and Spain.  Its vehicles are sold under the Renault, Dacia, Renault Samsung, Nissan, Infiniti, Datsun, Venucia and Lada brands.

Mr. Ghosn serves as on the International Advisory Council of Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Strategic Council of Saint Joseph University in Beirut.

He is the only major auto industry CEO born and raised in emerging markets. He was born in Brazil in 1954 and spent much of his youth in Lebanon. He graduated with engineering degrees from France’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1974 and from Ecole des Mines de Paris in 1978.