NISSAN Motor Co.’s third-highest-ranked executive is planning to leave the company to join a leading electric vehicle (EV) firm, an abrupt move that deals yet another blow to the scandal-plagued Japanese carmaker.

Jun Seki, the vice chief operating officer (COO) in charge of Nissan’s performance recovery, plans to join Japanese manufacturer Nidec Corp. as president and COO.

The 58-year-old was among the contenders to be Nissan’s chief executive officer in October, but missed out to Makoto Uchida, most recently the company’s China chief. Seki only took up his current position in December.

Nissan has seen its share of executive departures since last year’s shock arrest of former longtime chief Carlos Ghosn, but Seki’s exit stands out because he was part of a triumvirate set up to disperse leadership responsibilities at the automaker, Japan’s third largest by output.

The defection marks yet another distraction for Nissan, which is struggling to recover from the chaos unleashed by Ghosn’s arrest and an industry downturn, with profits at a decade-low and relations tense with French partner Renault SA.

The departure of Seki, who spent most of his career in engineering and manufacturing at Nissan, comes at a precarious time for the company and the auto sector, with established carmakers seeking scale through consolidation as a way of splitting the billions of dollars in investments needed to keep up with the shift toward electric and self-driving cars.

Nissan has accepted Seki’s decision to leave the company, the carmaker said yesterday in a statement, adding it will continue to focus on key areas including business transformation under the new management. Shiro Ikushima, a spokesman for Kyoto-based Nidec, declined to comment.

Seki will be joining a company that makes about an eighth of Nissan’s sales, but has a market value that’s more than 60 percent higher at about 4.5 trillion yen (US$41 billion). (SD-Agencies)