Second Round Talks with Nissan

December 21, 2006: Nashville, TN

Several Owen professors – Bill Christie, Joe Blackburn, Dick Daft and Steve Hoeffler – joined me and Tim Pierce, Owen’s Director of Sales for Executive Programs, in calling on executives at Nissan’s new North America headquarters here in Nashville. You may recall that I visited Nissan’s Tokyo HQ in late November. This second meeting was set up to talk with North American management about securing internships and post-graduate jobs for Owen students and to discuss educational programs for Nissan executives.

The visit in Tokyo combined with information provided by our recent guest speaker, Dominique Thormann (Nissan’s Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance), served as perfect advance preparation for this meeting. Like our calls at Dell and GE, we came ready for an engaged discussion, but were unsure of what we would hear. I’m happy to report that it was all positive.

We met with Dominique and other Senior Vice Presidents of Manufacturing, HR and Total Customer Satisfaction; all are eager to engage with our students and work with Owen and Vanderbilt in other ways. I was happy to hear from Dominique that he thoroughly enjoyed his time at Owen; he commented several times on the warm reception he received from his hosts (Owen’s Japan Business Club) and the students who attended his presentation.

So the opportunity is ours for the making. If you are a student who is reading this and are interested in working as an intern or full time for Nissan, please let the Career Management Center know of your interest. Or, feel free to write to me.

 

 

You'll recognize Professors Blackburn, Christie, Hoeffler, Daft and me.  Others appearing in picture are Dominique Thormann (Finance and Administration), Bill Kruger (Manufacturing), Doug Betts (Customer Satisfaction), Greg Kelly (HR) and Kim Davenport (Talent Management). Tim Pierce is behind the camera.