Auto Industry’s corporate merry-go-round in 2019

Vicente Saniel “Vince” Socco (left) and Froilan Dytianquin

The year 2019 was pretty much a challenging year for the auto industry as a whole. With a low single digit growth rate, it was practically flat the whole year. Not that the industry should complain, the stellar years of 2017-2018 outshone 2019’s figures only because a lot of purchases were made in the mad rush to beat the inflationary effects of the unpopular TRAIN law that took effect on Jan. 1 2018.

Most company CEOs expressed optimism for 2020, but were cautious in forecasting significant growth given the industry’s current challenges.

With this, we sum up last year’s merry-go-round of industry bosses and how they made a mark.

Last March, Nissan Philippines announced the appointment of Atsushi Najima as its new president and managing director effective April 01, 2019. He takes over the post left by Ramesh Narasimhan, who went on to become the president of Nissan Thailand. Under Narasimhan, Nissan’s sales grew by about 40 percent and cornered about 8.7 percent market share last year.

Under the new leadership of Najima, Nissan PH retained its number three market position and as of November, sold 39,946 units vs 31,663 with a growth of 26.2 percent and 11.88 percent market share. Prior to his appointment in Nissan PH, he joined Nissan in 2016 as GM of Nissan’s regional financial management group in Japan.

Glen Dasig

Eurobrands Distributor Inc., the Philippine distributor of French autobrand Peugeot (both are under the Columbian Group of Companies owned by businessman-politician Gov. Jose Chavez Alvarez) recently saw a change of hands in the leadership position. Bobby Rosales takes over the role left by Glen Dasig as president of the company. Rosales continues to play an important role in other capacities in the various businesses and companies of the Columbian Group. Glen Dasig on the other hand, is now under the office of the group’s chairman, Bienvenido Santos.

PK Umashankar

Last July, Ford Philippines announced the replacement of Bert Lassard as the company’s new managing director. PK Umashankar or “Uma” as his friends and colleagues would call him, was the director of Ford ASEAN’s customer service director based in Bangkok, Thailand. Prior to his posts in the region, he served as an executive in various capacities in his home country Ford India. His most recent appearance in his new leadership role was the media and dealer launch of Ford’s Transit van last November.

Vicente Saniel “Vince” Socco returned home after retiring as EVP of Toyota Motor Asia Pacific (TMAP) and was quickly named chairman of GT Capital Auto Dealership Holdings, Inc. (GTCAD), a wholly-owned subsidiary of GT Capital Holdings, Inc. of the Metrobank Group.

Socco counts almost four decades of involvement with Toyota. He was general affairs manager of Toyota’s Manila liason office before getting assigned in 1988 to Toyota Motor Philippines where he was eventually appointed as SVP for marketing. In 2007, he was appointed the same post at Lexus Asia while concurrently serve as the executive for country operations in TMAP (Toyota’s regional office based in Singapore). By 2014, he was named GM at TMAP with office in Japan and more recently, he transferred to Singapore regional office to serve as EVP until his retirement in July.

Arlan Reyes

After serving for 25 years, two key executives in Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) recently left to join new Chinese auto brands entering the local market. Froilan Dytianquin, MMPC’s first vice president for sales and marketing went on to join newcomer Geely Philippines as GM for sales and marketing while his long-time colleague and friend Arlan Reyes, who served in MMPC as AVP for the same division left to become Dongfeng Philippines as a consultant for its marketing division.