What big trends or megatrends do you see impacting the future of mobility?

I see maybe three megatrends set to impact the future of mobility, of which one is very obvious: the geopolitics of the world we live in. And I think it’s here to stay and will probably get more complicated. This is important because it's putting pressure on auto manufacturers on two fronts: on one hand, it's asking for flexibility, but at the same time, it's putting pressure on scale. Let's take the example of tariffs: it’s putting pressure on the need for flexibility to cope with the sourcing challenges OEMs face—both in terms of where we manufacture cars and source parts from. At the same time, it’s also driven by our own internal issues. This pressure is not only about sourcing, but also about the scale at which companies can operate. You need to remain flexible, but you also need to improve competitiveness, even at smaller scales. All of this is placing a lot of pressure on the traditional way of operating and building cars. This is one of the key dynamics we’re facing today, and as I said, it will probably get worse as we move forward. The pressures may take different shapes and forms, but they will continue to demand that OEMs look for breakthroughs in how they approach their cost structures—balancing flexibility with competitiveness.

Another one, which is probably much deeper than the first, is AI and the ‘AI-essation’ of everything. This will open many new avenues for the industry because it's changing the whole value chain and how we interact with customers, from designing, engineering, and manufacturing cars to presenting and advertising cars to customers. It will also help us use the habits of our customers to understand their needs better and anticipate their requirements and wishes. So, yes, I think AI will be really transformational because it can transform, and it is transforming, everything we do.

The third megatrend I see is from a population and demographics viewpoint. I think Japan is an excellent example of not only an aging population, but also a very strong polarization of the population. We have younger customers coexisting with older customers, which puts a lot of pressure on us to reinvent how we present cars to customers. Typically, larger or more expensive cars were equipped with the latest technologies. Today, you have to rethink this because people who want all these new technologies are actually buying affordable, accessible cars, not the most expensive cars.

So, I’d say multiple things are happening, but three are the most important to me.

How are these megatrends impacting mobility? You've touched on them for the auto industry—how is Nissan responding to them?

As I said, AI is changing how the industry remains competitive and makes cars. Coming specifically to Nissan, we're embracing AI very quickly and have changed our development standards and approach. Thanks to new technologies and AI, we’ve reduced the time to develop new cars to 37 months for the first car in the family and 30 months for subsequent cars. Our designers use AI in the early stages of sketching to come up with quicker and more refined ideas to accelerate the sketching process. We are also using augmented reality to review designs instead of the traditional method of making clay models and milling large assets to evaluate proportions. We are now examining all these designs and making adjustments on the fly by leveraging AR. So, AI is everywhere. We optimize car specs, read markets, plan products, and understand our customers using AI. There are also many other areas where we use AI. For example, the product planning team now uses AI to imagine and envision new concepts for future cars, helping us accelerate the process significantly. We’re using AI to help us understand customer habits so we can present our products better. When you have a connected car—and you know this very well—you get a lot of data on how the products are being used. Where and at what times of the day are people driving? What features are our customers using? We can cross this information with many different variables and parameters to understand the features we should put in the cars for the future. And this is helping us design better architectures for SDVs. For example, do you need over-the-air capability for every feature in the car?

So, yes. Leveraging AI can enable many, many great things, which we are actually doing at Nissan.

We all know about the ‘Chinese Speed’ to bring new models to market in less than 30 months. Are you saying companies like Nissan can now match that lifecycle development of a new product?

Sure. You have to keep in mind that 30 months includes multiple destinations. If we focused on a single market, we could shrink this process even further. But you know, Nissan is a global company, and we sell cars all over the world, which demands a lot more testing and a lot more confirmation than you would if you focused on a single market. So, 30 months, I believe, for a company with Nissan’s lineup and international coverage is very competitive.

Very nice. Tell me more about the lineup. What sort of product portfolio are you looking at in terms of growth?

Well, the portfolio has been a fascinating topic of discussion lately because, as I said, you see geopolitics on one end. So, you start trying to see two standards because the product you're preparing for China is not optimal for the US market. From a pure geopolitical viewpoint, you see some complexity that is not helping us because we used to leverage this strategy of having one car that could be sold in many markets globally. We can also see that the trends in those two markets are diverging. China, for example, is ahead when it comes to vehicle intelligence, while the US is still sticking to the traditional functional and practical values of a car. These two will gradually start converging in terms of customer needs, but they will not allow us to converge in terms of geopolitics. This is one of the difficulties we are facing and trying to address when it comes to technology. We have to focus on intelligent cars—intelligence in cars is the next era, and I'm pushing Nissan into this.

As for lineups specifically, you will see fewer cars in the lineup but with a bit more options to buy. We’ve noticed customers are not moving up as much as in the past because of the tension on income and household incomes not growing globally, as well as the inherent cost of technology and regulations increasing the cost of cars. There's a lot more repurchasing of the same product, so, in terms of lineup, rather than seeing a huge explosion of nameplates, we might see some consolidation, but with more options for customers to buy.

This also relates to what I mentioned earlier—though the richest technological specs should be offered on your top model, many younger customers expect the same intelligence in affordable cars. They expect and are much more prone to autonomous technology in their cars. This is changing the way we’re designing the portfolio in the lineup.

Yes, I totally agree, Ivan. I think we're living in a very heterogeneous world these days, and you need a heterogeneous portfolio. You mentioned something about a connected intelligent car. What is Nissan's philosophy on this? European OEMs are still struggling with SDV 1, whereas the Chinese plan to move to SDV2 and SDV3. Tell us about your vision for Software-defined Vehicles.

Nissan always makes technology for a purpose, and we build things around people. We're building on this, with very human-centric innovation and human-centric technology, which I’ve talked about earlier. We're trying to understand how customers use their products because it’s one thing to be the first with SDV technology to the market, but it's a very different thing to have and create value with it. Our focus at Nissan is understanding what customers expect and addressing their requirements fully, not just racing to make the most technologically capable product. We want to have an architecture that we can fully utilize instead of increasing costs for features and capabilities that customers will never benefit from.

For Nissan, it's offering a seamless connection between the different parts of the car. We are very good at chassis control, electric motor management and tuning, and autonomous drive and software. These are the key domains we must do very well in because the future will be an intelligent car that can be upgraded and personalized. We think that intelligent cars should be able to recognize the user the moment they get into the car and then understand their likes and dislikes, their driving habits, and then tune some of the parameters to make this experience very close to what they're expecting all the time. To give you an example of autonomous driving, if I share a car in my garage with my wife, the car should know who gets in and tweak the behavior to align with our driving habits. The system should be able to recognize that I'm, say, an aggressive driver who changes lanes more often and feels comfortable being closer to the car in front of me, and configure settings accordingly each time I get into the car. When my wife gets in the car, the car should know it's my wife and that she doesn't like changing lanes that often and gets a bit anxious with the car ahead, and tweak settings accordingly. This technology-centered philosophy focuses on people, keeping human behavior and benefits in mind. At Nissan, this is what we are.

I want to discuss how you are enabling business transformation at Nissan. When I spoke to your team, it seemed you've removed the Nemavashi from the business and made the organization more agile. Tell me more about it. What transformation have you done, and what are you planning to do next?

Well, there are a few things. On one hand, we are really driving to change the culture. We were very slow as a company and focused on asking the wrong questions, spending time on things that were not necessary, and somehow giving ourselves work. The culture we are coming from has a big validation in where people checked the work of other people, and there still is, but these are some of the things that we are trying to eradicate. Rather than having people validate each other's work, we're pushing to have people working hand-in-hand towards the same objective to gain speed and efficiency and become a much leaner organization with a common goal. The beauty of Nissan is that when you put people together in a room with a common goal, they will work hand-in-hand and fight every day to get there. This is one of the things that we are driving as a culture transformation.

For example, we come from an era where we had decks for presentations with maybe 10 slides for the presentation and 80 slides in the appendix, just in case somebody asks questions. We are changing that by saying we no longer need appendices. If there is a question and you don't have the answer, you can answer by e-mail within the next 24-48 hours, and we move on. With this, the amount of work removed is enormous, allowing for focus on real, meaningful value-added tasks. This is something that we are reorganizing as a priority. We are also working a lot on internal communication—being transparent and very direct to employees, making sure that they understand the state of the business, and having not only one-way communication but very open, two-way communication. I have a channel called ‘Call Me Ivan’ where people can raise questions at any given time, and I make a short video every two weeks to answer the queries. This is totally new and a reflection of our world, where people want immediate access to things. Why can't an employee have immediate access to the top management? If something makes an employee uneasy or anxious, especially where we are as a company right now, we need to build more trust. We need a lot more engagement with our employees, and these are a few things we are working on, starting with cultural transformation.

That's very nice to hear. Can you tell me a little about your leadership style in managing this vast and multicultural organization?

I'm very open and approachable. At the same time, I'm very decisive and like to be quick. Together with the EC, I’m ensuring that the feedback we give or the interactions we're having are very transparent and that we are leaving politics completely out of the room. We don't want to have any approach in which we prioritize the function rather than the company. As of now, it's straightforward. All of us in the executive committee share the same priority and goal, which is working for Nissan to be what it deserves to be, and each of the EC members is using their function to help us build on that and to help us deliver. As I said, I’m very open, always listening and asking the right questions, but not unnecessarily. I have experts. That's why people are in their jobs, and I trust them. I trust their judgment, and based on the information I'm being presented, we try to take quick, decisive action because this is what Nissan needs now.

Understood. You're one of the youngest CEOs of a Japanese company, especially given the size, and you're also a foreigner. Tell us about your experience, and if there are any strengths and weaknesses.

I've been working at Nissan for almost 25 years, and everybody knows me from my previous roles. I've moved around different regions and functions and worked with people in some way, so I'm ingrained in how the company works. I know the company's strengths, weaknesses, and improvement areas, making it easier for me to understand what's happening. I think my character helps, too, because I'm not imposing and I'm not forcing things. I listen, which helps people come up and tell me what's happening, allowing me to make the right decisions for the company.

In terms of being a foreigner in Japan, as I said, it's been 25 years for me at Nissan, so I don't feel like a stranger. In my previous role as a CPLO, I was in the depths of our technical center in Atsugi, working with engineering, designing, and manufacturing teams. So, people are used to my way of working, and I'm used to working and operating in a Japanese company. I don't know how to qualify it, but I might be the closest to an insider outsider.

And last question: Could you tell me more about your hobbies or passions and how they manifest in your leadership style?

Well, I'm very curious by nature. I've done, and do, many things. Many people are surprised when I tell them that, as a Mexican, I played ice hockey at some point in my life.

Wow. Yes, that is surprising.

Yes. A lot of people go, like, what? But yes, I played ice hockey and still play tennis and golf. I'm also a musician. I play the guitar and the drums. I'm just very curious and love to discover new things. Once I discover something and like it, I get into it. How does this translate? I'm curious. I've never said no to any new challenge in my career, probably because of my curiosity. My first foreign assignment was to Thailand, from Mexico to Thailand. I told my wife we're going to Thailand, what do you think? Well, she says, first tell me where Thailand is. This curiosity has always pushed me to discover new things and challenge new ways of doing things. I try to ask many questions because I'm again very curious.

There's also the element of music. In music, the drums play an interesting role in keeping everything together. And, it's funny, because if you listen carefully to music, if you listen to one song and change the drum pattern, you can actually change the whole song and how you perceive it. In business, the way you lead a team, the way you lead a discussion can really change and drive the outcome. This is one of the things that, as an analogy with the drum playing, you can keep the pace, but you don't only keep the pace, you can drive many things within the song. You try to keep everyone together and drive them to an outcome. You are the one who starts the song, and you are the one who ends the song. You have to keep everyone together, giving cues to people. It's an interesting way of comparing playing the drums to how this could be reflected in your daily job or a leadership job like mine.

Brilliant. Thank you, Ivan. I’m not sure about the drums, but we should definitely play golf the next time we meet.

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