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Infiniti design boss leaves company

Karim Habib, the head of design for Infiniti, has left the company, and will be replaced by Taisuke Nakamura.


Nakamura will take up his position as Infiniti's design chief from September 1. Nakamura has been with Nissan since 1993, when he graduated from Kyoto City University, and has been Infiniti's program design director since 2018.

His credits include Infiniti QX Inspiration, Prototype 10, and Qs Inspiration concept cars.

Prior to this he was the head of Nissan Design Europe. When Nakamura takes up his new role he will report directly to Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan's global design boss.

Habib is leaving "to pursue other opportunities" after just two years in charge of Infiniti's design direction.

He joined Nissan's luxury marque in March 2017 after a long spell at BMW, the company he joined straight out of university in 1998. He spent the final five years at BMW as the core brand's design chief.

Albaisa praised Habib as a "deeply valued member of our family", and wished him "continued success, happiness and all the best as he seeks new inspiration and achievements outside of Nissan".

The departure of Habib is the latest in a series of upheavals at Infiniti this year. It all began in March when the company announced it was ending production of the Q30 and QX30 crossovers, as well as withdrawing from the European market by 2020.

In May the brand lost its chief executive, Christian Meunier, who quit to head up Fiat Chrysler's Jeep brand. Weeks later Infiniti announced it would move its headquarters from Hong Kong back to Japan in order to gain "operational efficiencies".

Since the arrest of Carlos Ghosn in November 2017, Nissan's then-chairman and former CEO, a number of prominent foreign-born executives have left the Japanese automaker, including Jose Munoz, the company's chief performance officer, and Trevor Mann, chief operating officer of Mitsubishi Motors.

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