SA General Motors boss to head South-East Asia division

GENERAL Motors president and managing director for its sub-Saharan region and head of General Motors South Africa (GMSA), Ian Nicholls, has been appointed president of GM South-East Asia.

In his new job, Nicholls will oversee the Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam units for the US automotive giant.

This emerged from a GM statement released yesterday in which the company announced its “reorganisation of its Chevrolet business in Southeast Asia”. Nicholls’s appointment effective from September 1.

The former Nelson Mandela Business Chamber president will be based in Bangkok, where he will report to Stefan Jacoby, GM executive vice-president and president of GM International.

The new development follows the recent announcement that GM, along with the Chevrolet brand, is to withdraw from South Africa, with the withdrawal already at an advanced stage.

Nicholls will remain in his current role at GMSA and support the operations through its transition during the will be remainder of 2017.

The company’s departure has seen its former Opel brand being retained locally under new ownership and management.

Japan’s Isuzu Motors, under Isuzu Motors South Africa (IMSA), is set to take full control of Isuzu’s current pickup and truck production facilities in the country from January 2018.

Isuzu will also take over GMSA’s considerable portfolio of facilities in South Africa.

“Southeast Jacoby said. Asia is a focus of GM,”

Michael Sacke, currently GMSA’s chief finance officer (CFO) will, with immediate effect, be appointed to both chief operations officer and CFO to assume responsibility for the day to day operations of the company and manage its transition (to IMSA) through to the end of the year.

Following completion of the transition, Sacke will assume the role of chief executive and managing director of IMSA.

In tandem with the GM announcement, IMSA yesterday also revealed a number of key leadership appointments in support of its purchase assets from GMSA.

Haruyasu Tanishige, in addition to his current role of senior executive officer for the sales division of Isuzu Motors in Japan, will be appointed chairman of IMSA, although he will continue to be based in Isuzu’s Tokyo headquarters.

“We are very excited about the appointment of Michael Sacke as he has had a long association with Isuzu Motors, including serving as board member of Isuzu Trucks South Africa for the past nine years,” Tanishige said. — DDC of Isuzurelated