Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire
Hans Greimel and William Sposato
Harvard Business Review Press (June 2021)

Here is what many view as “a tale of two Ghosns, both found in one man”

Hans Greimel and William Sposato have created what seems certain to become the definite analysis of one of the most publicized careers in the modern business world. At one time, Carlos Ghosn was chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, a strategic partnership among those automotive manufacturers through a complex cross-shareholding agreement. Today, Ghosn’s official biography will always be tarnished by a shameful nonerasable asterisk: “he ended his legendary career after being indicted four times and jumping bail to live as an international fugitive.”

As Greimel and Sposato explain, “There is a misleadingly simple narrative in the Ghosn story, centered on good guys, bad guys, individual greed, and a made-for-Hollywood getaway. Our approach, and a primary motivation to take on a book, was to offer an account that chronicles a more complex tale with more nuanced characters, not to mention ramifications that will continue for years.” (Page xi)

Briefly, Carlos Ghosn was born 9 March 1954. He is a Lebanese, Brazilian-born businessman who also holds French and Lebanese nationality. Over time, he forged a strategic partnership among those automotive manufacturers through a complex cross-shareholding agreement. The venture has held approximately 10% of the total market share since 2010 and, as of 2017, was understood to be the largest automobile group worldwide.

o Previously, in 1996, Renault’s CEO Louis Schweitzer hired Ghosn as his deputy and charged him with the task of turning the company around from near-bankruptcy. He became known as “Le Cost Killer.”

o In the early 2000s, for orchestrating one of the auto industry’s most aggressive downsizing campaigns and spearheading the turnaround of Nissan from its near-bankruptcy in 1999, he earned the nickname “Mr. Fix It.”

o Following the Nissan financial turnaround, he stepped down as CEO of Nissan on 1 April 2017, while remaining chairman of the company.

o He was arrested at Tokyo International Airport on 19 November 2018, on allegations of under-reporting his salary and gross misuse of company assets. On 22 November 2018, Nissan’s board dismissed Ghosn as Nissan’s Chairman, effective immediately.

o Mitsubishi Motors’ executive board took similar action on 26 November 2018.

o Renault and the French government continued to support him at first, presuming him innocent until they ultimately found the situation untenable and Ghosn was made to retire as Chairman and CEO of Renault on 24 January 2019.

o While out on bail granted in early March, Ghosn was re-arrested in Tokyo on 4 April 2019, over new charges of misappropriations of Nissan funds.

o On 8 April 2019, Nissan shareholders voted to oust Ghosn from the company’s board. He was released again on bail on 25 April.

o In June, Renault uncovered 11 million euros in questionable expenses by him, leading to a French investigation and raids.

o Ghosn fled from Japan to Lebanon via Turkey on 30 December, by private jet, breaking his bail conditions.

He was on what proved to be a multidimensional collision course with officials in three governments (France, Japan, and United States) and fiduciary responsibilities to three automobile companies (Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi). The complexity is exacerbated by legal, cultural, and social issues as well as conflicts between his career ambitions and his personal interests. Greimel and Sposato thoroughly examine all this “from the day he arrived as a celebrated fix-it man, right up to his daredevil bail-jumping escape as an international fugitive twenty years later.”

According to Ghosn, “The first achievement that no one can take away from me, is turning around Nissan. Number two, without any doubt, is the fact that I was able to manage three companies within the Alliance, two for many years and then the third for a couple of years, without any hiccup…It took my arrest to stop it.” (Pages 325-326)

Each reader must decide who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, and who are both in terms of individual ambition as well as greed, amidst various culture wars that upended an auto empire. When given the chance to head Renault-Nissan as “an irreversible Alliance” for another four years, he could have declined. He was sixty-four and later acknowledged, “that was a good moment to stop.” He didn’t.

In retrospect, was that really his biggest regret? Ghosn: “Without any doubt.”