Renault has launched the process to replace Ghosn

PARIS (Reuters) – Renault (PA:RENA) has launched the process of selecting a successor to CEO Carlos Ghosn, whose mandate ends in may next year, and appointed headhunters, who have started to audition potential candidates, reported Wednesday the daily Les Echos on its website.

According to the newspaper, the dolphin, Carlos Ghosn, 63 years old, should be appointed to the board of directors in February next, for the shareholders to decide at the next general assembly by the vehicle manufacturer, planned for the 15 June, and the resolutions should be published in April.

A spokesman for Renault declined to comment on the information.

Reuters reported in early June that the CEO of Renault, which sold this year for the operational management of Nissan (T:7201) to retain the presidency, was also in search of a new operational manager for the alliance to prepare for his own succession.

Sources had then indicated that a number of senior executives from Renault and Nissan have applied in the framework of a process of internal recruitment, including the Spanish Jose Munoz, deputy director of Performance of Nissan, the japanese Yasuhiro Yamauchi, director responsible for the group’s competitiveness, nippon, the German Stefan Mueller, a counterpart of Jose Munoz at Renault, and the French Thierry Bolloré, homolog of Yasuhiro Yamauchi in the group to the diamond.

The sources had added that Carlos Ghosn should then keep an important role, for example the presidency of the Renault-Nissan alliance recently expanded to Mitsubishi.

Les Echos writes to his side at the level of Renault, Carlos Ghosn could also split the function of CEO to retain only the presidency of the French group, and that an inner track is clearly preferred that his successor would be operational.

Among the other candidates, the newspaper mentions the name of the current chief commercial officer of Renault, the French Thierry Koskas. The economic daily stresses that the nationality of the candidates will play an important role to convince the main shareholder of the group, the French State, which owns 15% of the capital.

Among the external candidates, les Echos, citing three former Renault: Didier Leroy, the current president of Toyota (T:7203) Europe, Carlos Tavares, the number of the group to the diamond until he left to lead the PSA (PA:PEUP), after having publicly made his intention to succeed Carlos Ghosn and Patrick Pélata, the other number two of Renault, victim in 2012 of the espionage affair, which had shaken the French manufacturer. Les Echos points out, however, that all three of these car experts have already been, respectively, 60, 59, and 62 years old.

(Gilles Guillaume, edited by Jean-Michel Belot)