- Expertise: Marketing, sales, leading teams
- Location: Montigny-le-Bretonneux, France
- Languages spoken: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan. Basic Dutch and Portuguese.
- DOB: April 1963
Who is Jordi Vila?
Jordi is Divisional Vice President Africa, another strategic market for Nissan, home to two Nissan plants and where there is potential for significant business growth.
Career History
Born in Barcelona and after completing his school, University and post-degree MBA studies in the city, prior to joining Nissan Jordi created a small company and worked in a dealership.
With over 30 years of experience with the company, Jordi calls himself a real "Nissan guy". While gaining broad experience in an array of roles over the years, he developed a career in sales and marketing and has shared his time between regional headquarters and regional business units.
Jordi started as Export Area Manager in 1989 looking after 4X4 and LCV business in Europe, as well as overseas markets, for Completely Built Unit (CBU) and Completely Knocked-Down (CKD) operations. In October 1997 he was promoted to Nissan Europe where he alternated headquarter roles (including LCV Sales & Marketing Manager, Chief Marketing Manager, Importers GM, Customer Quality & Dealer Network Development GM) with market assignments (Sales Director, Customer Quality and Dealer Network development, mostly). From 2011 to 2014 he created from scratch the central and RBU Corporate Sales structure to drastically grow Nissan business on Fleet, International Key Accounts, and process Used Car (UC) and Residual Value (RV) management.
During his time as Country Director of Nissan Netherlands (2014-2015) and Managing Director of Nissan Nordics (2015-2017), Jordi drove the focus on profitable growth, LEAF and Navara success, while bringing cohesion and direction to the teams. From 2017, and during 3 years, he led Sales and Network Operations for Nissan in Europe, while seconding on the SVP role during a vacancy period.
On April 1st 2020 Jordi took on the role of SVP Marketing & Sales for Asia & Oceania based in Thailand. He was in this role for the first half of FY20. He returned to Europe in August 2020 to take on the lead of European Marketing & Sales operations, as Divisional VP Marketing & Sales for Nissan in Europe. In April 2024, Jordi assumed the role of Divisional Vice President Africa.
Achievements
Jordi says that being able to achieve a new goal every three to five years is something he's really proud of from his time with Nissan. Although he's been with the brand for over 30 years, Jordi says that constantly being given new challenges to overcome means he's been able to work with different functions to reach new objectives, and personally evolve and learn throughout these experiences.
Factual growth of fleet sales, RV management, sales quality and dealer equity, market share in Netherlands and profitable volume in Nordics, are a few of the quantifiable achievements.
Personal Memory
Something that Jordi is really proud of is the ability to foster new business streams, as well as the time he's spent helping to grow and motivate his teams.
In particular, Jordi says the creation of the Corporate Sales organisation as well as the success on fostering teams' cohesion in complex environments like Nordics or within headquarters, is very rewarding.
Why is Nissan different?
Every big brand has its challenges, but Jordi says Nissan's ability to be agile in times of change and its innovative approach during these moments is what sets it apart. When thinking about Nissan in comparison to other automotive brands, Jordi emphasises that the company's strength in crossovers and its pioneering stake into electrification gives Nissan an advantage when it comes to the future of mobility in the region. While Jordi says the brand is still evolving, he notes that Nissan has a good value proposition and there are plenty of exciting possibilities in the works.
Future Predictions
As we know, the automotive industry is going through a major shift. However, Jordi says it's important to remember that such an evolution can take between 10-15 years, especially when the landscape is totally changing in regard to powertrains. He also believes the roles and responsibilities of dealers will continue to evolve due to the continued growth of digitalisation, particularly in this post-pandemic world. Jordi says this will have a lot of implications as to how brands manage and engage with consumers and why it's more about how companies learn about their consumers. He also notes that the approach to marketing is shifting and through collaboration with dealer networks as well as new digital tools, automotive brands can get closer to consumers than ever before.
Education
- Master of Foreign Trade, Centro de Estudios de Economia Internacional (1992-1994)
- MBA, University of South Carolina Programme, Instituto Catalan de Formacion Empresarial (1989-1991)
- Master of Laws, Barcelona Central University (1982-1987)
In Jordi's Personal Time
Jordi enjoys spending time with his family and friends when he's not working, as well as running- which he says is important for his health and mind. He also likes to play tennis, go sailing and flying light airplanes. However, Jordi says he balances all of this out with finding time for himself.
Your current car
Jordi currently drives a Nissan X-Trail.
Your first car
The first car Jordi drove was a Ford Fiesta, but his first Nissan car was a Sunny.
