Nissan said Chief Financial Officer Jeremie Papin would step down for personal reasons, with the struggling Japanese carmaker appointing a long-serving executive to replace him.
George Leondis will succeed Papin as finance chief from April 1, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Papin will remain with Nissan through mid-May to shepherd the carmaker through the end of the fiscal year.
Papin became CFO in 2025 in the run-up to a leadership shuffle that coincided with the beginning of the carmaker’s push to slash costs and rescue itself from its worst crisis in almost three decades. Most recently Nissan narrowed its operating-loss forecast and touted progress in its cost-cutting drive.
Leondis joined Nissan in 2004 as head of finance for Australia. Since 2024 he’s been in Japan, where he’s led global product and industrial operations, as well as partnership financing and mergers and acquisitions.
He takes the role at a critical time for Nissan. While the carmaker’s brighter outlook has given Chief Executive Officer Ivan Espinosa a degree of breathing room, pressure is mounting on the company to refresh an aging lineup in order to reignite demand.
Last month, Nissan forecast a ¥60 billion ($380 million) operating loss for the fiscal year ending March, better than its previous estimate for ¥275 billion. The carmaker expects to report a full-year net loss of ¥650 billion, as well as net sales of ¥11.9 trillion.
While Espinosa pushes on with a restructuring that will see Nissan cut 20,000 jobs and shutter seven factories, Nissan still faces major headwinds. That includes increasingly cutthroat competition in China as well as uncertain U.S. trade policies, chip-supply risks and tumultuous moves in energy markets due to the Iran war.
