Ashwani Gupta to succeed Trevor Mann as new COO for Mitsubishi

Just a day after announcing a new start by the new board of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, one of the biggest global auto partnerships, there have been some major changes in the leadership among the three companies.

Among the major shuffles sees Mitsubishi Motors' chief operating officer, Trevor Mann, set to leave the company. He will be replaced by Ashwani Gupta, who was appointed as the head for the Renault-Nissan LCV Business Unit in 2017 and was reporting to the erstwhile Alliance president, Carlos Ghosn.

The new role for Gupta was revealed by Automotive News Europe, which says the shuffle would come into effect from April 1. The report states that Mitsubishi announced the changes on Wednesday as part of a wider shuffle among the top ranks at Nissan and Mitsubishi on the back of the arrest of Carlos Ghosn in November 2018.

Born in Dehradun, India, Gupta graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, India, and obtained a diploma from INSEAD Business School in France. He has been vice-president of Renault's LCV division since 2014, where he oversaw the automaker's worldwide LCV business.

Gupta joined Renault in 2006 as general manager of purchasing at Renault India in Mumbai. In 2008, he moved to the Renault Nissan Purchasing Organization in Paris as global supplier account manager for braking systems. He joined Renault Nissan B.V. in 2009 as deputy general manager, global purchasing. In 2011, Gupta was appointed global program director for Datsun programs at Nissan Motor Co in Japan, where he led the product development to launch in India, Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. He started his career in 1992 in engineering and purchasing in the private sector and later moved to management positions in the automotive industry.