• by Karl Greenberg , April 15, 2013

Some big shifts are taking place this year in auto marketing personnel, as executive musical chairs has marketers moving. 

On Monday, Nissan announced that Fred Diaz, the CEO of Chrysler LLC's Ram Truck brand, is heading to Franklin, Tenn. to take on the new role of divisional VP, Nissan Sales & Marketing for the U.S. Diaz will report to Jose Munoz, SVP, sales & marketing, customer quality and dealer network development, for the Americas. 

Nissan says Diaz will oversee operations of the Nissan Division in the United States, including all sales, marketing, fixed operations, parts and service and administration functions. He will also handle the business-to-business side: light commercial vehicle and fleet sales, parts  service and regional operations report to him. Diaz started at Ram Truck in 2009. In 2011, he was named chief executive of Chrysler's Mexican operations, handling Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Mitsubishi. 

Meanwhile, at Chrysler, Reid Bigland, who was President of the Dodge brand, will take over Diaz' post at Ram Truck. And Timothy Kuniskis, who was head of Fiat, is being shifted over to run the Dodge brand. That means someone needs to run Fiat. That will be Jason Stoicevich, who will double up, covering Fiat while staying on as director of the California Business Center. In other changes, Bruno Cattori will now be president and CEO of Chrysler de México. Most recently, he was director for retail sales and fleet for all Chrysler Group brands in Mexico, a post he will maintain. 

Other big moves in the industry this year: In February, General Motors grabbed Volkswagen of America CMO Tim Mahoney to be global CMO for Chevrolet, to take "Find New Roads" around the world. 

Late last year, troubled high-end maker of electric sports cars Fisker Automotive hired former GM global CMO Joel Ewanick as the interim chief of global sales and marketing.