Education
Carlos Ghosn graduated with degree in engineering from the École Polytechnique and the École des Mines de Paris in 1978. He speaks fluently French, English and German, writes and speaks Spanish, Arabic, Italian and Japanese.
Career
Carlos Ghosn, born on 9 March 1954 in Brasil in a Lebanese family. His grandfather emigrated to Brasil before his birth. In 1960, the family moved back to Lebanon. There, Carlos attended the Collège Notre Dame de Jambour, a Jesuit catholic secondary school. In 1970, he moved to live in France.
His career took a crucial turn in 1996, when he joined Renault Group as executive vice president responsible for the Group’s activities in Mercosur countries, as well as for research, engineering, purchasing and production. In 1999, he initiated an alliance between Renault and Nissan. Renault acquired 36.8% of stake in Nissan, and Nissan got 15% of non-voting shares of Renault. Carlos Ghosn was appointed as a chief operations officer and later as a chief executive officer of Nissan, while maintaining his role at Renault.
The most outstanding achievement of Carlos Ghosn at Nissan was elimination of the company’s financial debt of about USD20 billion. Nissan was close to bankruptcy, when Ghosn was put at the helm of the company. He launched a large scale restructuring program that included cutting of 14% of jobs and closing of several plants. After three years, Nissan became one of the most profitable car manufacturers worldwide, with operating margins of about 9%.
In 2012 Ghosn was appointed as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of AvtoVAZ (Russia). He is also a member of the board of directors for Brazilian bank Banco Itaú.
Anecdotes
Since 2006, Carlos Ghosn is an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Forbes magazine named him "the hardest-working man in the brutally competitive global car business". His life has been chronicled in a Japanese manga comic book.
