Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida to step down on April 1, 2025 – Ivan Espinosa appointed as successor

In another change of leadership, Nissan has announced that Makoto Uchida will step down as CEO on April 1, 2025. According to an official release, current chief planning officer Ivan Espinosa will succeed Uchida, who will retain his position as director until the annual general meeting of shareholders planned for June this year.

The appointment of Espinosa as CEO is Nissan’s fourth in less than six years and comes amid the company’s worsening financials as well as the collapse of merger talks with Honda less than a month ago.

Nissan and Honda signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last December to explore the possibility of a merger, but this was ended in February this year. Discussions at the time saw Honda propose a change in structure.

Rather than establishing a joint holding company, where Honda would appoint the majority of directors and the CEO based on a joint share transfer as initially outlined, it was proposed that Honda would be the parent company and Nissan the subsidiary through a share exchange. Nissan did not accept this proposal, which resulted in the termination of the MoU – Mitsubishi also backed out.

It is still unclear if Espinosa’s appointment would put merger talks back on the table or open up the possibility for a new partner to be involved.

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