General Motors Poaches Infiniti Boss Johan de Nysschen To Lead Cadillac
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General Motors has hired former Infiniti Worldwide boss Johan de Nysschen as the President of Global Cadillac. De Nysschen, 54, announced his departure from Nissan’s Infiniti luxury brand yesterday after two years on the job.
“Johan brings to our company vast experience in the development and proper execution of luxury automotive brands,” said GM president Dan Ammann. “With over 20 years in this exact space, especially in the development of the Audi brand, his track record proves he is the perfect executive to lead Cadillac for the long term.”
de Nysschen will be responsible for all aspects of Cadillac including sales, pricing, dealer network development, strategic brand development and marketing and product portfolio planning. He is effective in the position starting August 1.
“I have for some time now been impressed by how the new General Motors has been transformed into a formidable force in the industry,” he said. “The combination of strong corporate leadership and exceptional engineering resources presents the perfect combination to restore Cadillac to its place among global premium brands,” de Nysschen said in a statement.
Prior to his job with Infiniti, de Nysschen was the chief executive at Audi USA for eight years and president of Audi Japan for five. He began his career with
“I am delighted at the opportunity to join the GM executive team to lead the Cadillac business, and I look forward to working with my Cadillac colleagues and our global retail partners,” de Nysschen added.
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This is a great move. His first project should be to fix the ELR marketing and pricing dilemma. This is a great car (I own one) and it is so misunderstood by just about everyone who has never experienced it firsthand. Welcome to GM and it’s premier brand Johan…
No, the job there is to make the ELR a Buick, which is what it should have been from the start. I’m not a hybrid hater, I like the idea of performance oriented hybrids like the BMW i8, but FWD should be for Buicks and Chevys, not for Cadillacs.
Buick would benefit from a Voltec model, but the ELR is perfectly fine as a Cadillac. GM just forgot to launch it before the Volt.
And GM never really explained what their intent of the car was very clearly.
Yes they took a Volt but they also took a show car with little to no back seat to put it in.
As they say this car is more of an exhibition and not an competition model.
This car was more like a Chrysler Turbine you could buy vs. a high volume model. It was to show and say we have electric and we can make it look good.
Too be honest they would have been better off to wait for the car they are working on now but hind sight is 20/20
No the job is to just let the ELR run out its short life as it was never intended to be a profit center nor a long term car. It is just filling the gap to show case technology until Cadillac has the car they want to really use for this slot. Look for a Tesla like sedan to come in the near future.
As for this guy. I just hope he gets one vision and one focused direction for the marketing at Cadillac. They now have the product but their marketing has been blown up every 6 months.
I understand it will take time and investment to grow Cadillac and a true focused marketing plan. But this changing of marketing and expecting Cadillac to rule the segments it is in now is silly.
The key is to get butts into the seats what ever way you can find a way to do it while building a image around the car that entices the people to buy it and have that image reflect upon them.
Lets face it we all could easily live out lives daily just fine with a Chevy Spark and some people do as they do not care what that cars image reflects on them or if they do they like to be thought of as ecological or thrifty.
Driving a BMW for most who buy them says they are interested in performance or to a greater degree that they have money and big balls. It says to those around and sends the signal that you have made it and are successful and have money. Now not all owners have done that but if they don’t know you it can fool some into thinking you have made it.
That is the image Cadillac needs to establish. It is not easy and takes time to build this kind of image but it takes good consistent marketing and focus to do this.
The whole BMW thing got started with the phrase The Ultimate Driving Machine and good marketing for it. As time passed the money people came and bought them and now many even with out the money buy or desire them.
Cadillac now has a car to match or beat BMW but it has to take the time to build the image. You can not design it and you can not buy it as it is like a good whiskey and needs to be created and aged.
Right now Cadillac’s image is right there with Lexus as it is not as bad as Lincoln but it is still not seen as one of the top three players yet.
Cadillac is 5-10 years from reaching it’s potential through marketing if they start today with one track focus on the marketing.
There was an old Dudley Moore movie where he went nuts and was in advertising. He came up with car slogans from the folks he was in the nut house with. While not ones you would really use it points out the real hidden meaning that advertising evokes.
Boxy but Safe Volvo.
Buy a Jaguar and get laid!
Cheap and superficial it is but that is the kind of hidden thought these cars images give. This is why rich old men drive Ferraris.
Ironically, you guys focused on ELR as a test case for this guy. You have to do a little bit of net research – but it’s
not hard to find quotes from this guy while at Audi where he’s really, REALLY down on electric cars. He moved
to Infinity where he didn’t slow down on his commentary saying electric cars make zero sense. He proceeded
to shelve two Infinity electric projects that were already in the concept car and production testing process! So
NO — NO new electric Caddys for this guy! He hate’s ’em. Interesting fact: Infinity has re-opened it’s luxury
EV sedan project upon his departure! Remember, Nissan’s CEO Ghosn is one of the worlds BIGGEST PROPONENTS
of electric drive, so no wonder this guy lasted 2 years there!
My next big question – WHY hire him in the first place? He’s a dinosaur who believes ICE power is the way to go.
GM keeps making big puzzling moves, one after another. ELR was just another Allante, XLR or Cimmarron.
They did state it would be uber-exclusive and limited production. It seems that production should stop
…right about now! At 100 sales per month or so – STOP THE MADNESS! It really must’ve been a hat tip to
Bob Lutz as he went out the door to semi-retirement. He loved the Converj Concept but the darn thing
never should’a seen the light of day. The car absolutely has no case to see production. A Volt with
some baubels that seats 2.5 lined with Alcantara and an electric cup holder for $80,000?!!! Are you kidding
me?!!! The sexy show-car body isn’t enough to justify the price/performance/practicality quotient.
Tesla will build it’s BlueStar – the code name for the affordable 3rd gen sedan. Tesla has stated a $35,000
pricepoint. Even at $40,000 – a 200 mile EV with Tesla performance will fly off the shelves. That car will
move the market. Deadweight like Johan de Nysschen will set Cadillac far behind in a luxe EV counterpart.
So sad.