AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/02 Report--

Renault has been choosing Sennard as chief executive in order to stabilize the group and maintain relations with Nissan after the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, Renault's chief executive, in November.

The low-key 66-year-old Jean Sennard is seen as a staunch defector, who graduated from the prestigious French business university HEC in 1976, where he earned a law degree. He began his career with Total, the French state-owned oil company, in finance and operations. In 1987, he moved to Saint-Gobain, which listed automotive glass as a broad industrial product portfolio. Since then, Sennard joined the aluminum and packaging conglomerate Peiri as chief financial officer in 1996. In 2005 he joined Michelin as chief financial officer and a member of the group's executive committee.

Sennard played an important role in maintaining the relationship between Renault and Nissan, and he is familiar with Japan because he served as Michelin's chief financial officer before joining Renault. Bridgestone, Japan's largest tire maker, is a competitor to Michelin. Sennard gave full play to this specialty and traveled to Japan many times in just two months to meet with Nissan CEO Nishikawa Hiroshi to persuade Nissan that the merger of Renault and FCA would not affect the relationship between Nissan and Renault.

Some Ghosn supporters in Renault accused Nishikawa Hiroshi of driving Ghosn out of the Renault-Nissan alliance, but Sennard ignored it. Sennard said after a meeting with Nissan executives: this is not a negative factor affecting the development of the alliance in the future.

Sennard was less known outside France than the well-known Carlos Ghosn. He has no previous experience as an executive at a carmaker, but he has long worked for other large suppliers related to the car manufacturing industry, and he is also the first non-Michelin chief executive.

During the merger talks with FCA, he reached an agreement with FCA Chairman John Erkan that none of the existing FCA plants would be closed after the merger, and during his tenure at Michelin he carried out a steady expansion plan to buy Fenner, a maker of polymer products for the industrial market, and Camso, a $1.45 billion Canadian off-road tire manufacturer, for $1.7 billion. That brings Michelin's total sales to $24.5 billion last year and is expected to challenge Bridgestone, which has been an industry leader for a decade.

For the new office, he has not said publicly that he has more operational measures for the Chinese market, but it is believed that the leader who led the Michelin Group to become a leader in the industry should be more cautious and discerning than Carlos Ghosn. Now, whether it is FCA or Renault, the first problem is the decline in model sales and the simplification of brand products. And there are no products optimized or designed for Chinese consumers. It is hoped that after settling the cooperative relationship of the alliance, this elegant French gentleman will be able to pull Renault and FCA out of the current predicament in China.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat