By Ulysses Ang

NISSAN PHILIPPINES held an official turnover ceremony that saw Atsushi Najima being appointed as their new president and managing director. The appointment, which was effective since April 1, sees Najima-san take the reigns from Ramesh Narasimhan who will be moving to Thailand for his next stint.

Mr. Najima will be reporting directly to Vincent Wijnen, SVP for Sales and Marketing at Nissan Asia & Oceania. In his new role, Mr. Najima will be responsible for developing business strategies to maximize Nissan’s overall performance, managing product introductions, and expanding the availability of the Nissan brand in the Philippines under its midterm plan Nissan M.O.V.E. to 2022.

In a statement, Mr. Wijnen said: “With his rich experience in managing teams across multiple countries, I am confident that Atsushi will continue to drive the strong growth trajectory established by the current leadership team.”

“Under the strong leadership of Ramesh Narasimhan, Nissan has seen significant growth in the promising Philippine market. In calendar year 2018, Nissan’s sales volume in the Philippines grew by 40% to an 8.7% market share,” Mr. Vincent added.

True enough, Mr. Narasimhan leaves the top post at Nissan Philippines with a compounded growth of 58% — three times the industry average. Mr. Narasimhan attributes the continued success of Nissan in the Philippines not just because of the slew of new product offerings, but because of improved customer experience and a strong leadership team.

Mr. Atsushi joined Nissan in 2016 as deputy general manager of Nissan’s regional financial management group in Japan. Prior to this, he spent 18 years at Procter & Gamble across Asia, holding various finance and general management roles in the Philippines, Singapore, and Japan.

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