• Bloomberg, Monday, February 20, 2006 11:01 AM

The two top marketing executives at Mitsubishi Motors Corp. resigned suddenly for unspecified reasons, the company said. David Schembri, executive vice president of U.S. sales and marketing, and U.S. marketing vice president Wayne Killen, both left the company, Mitsubishi said in a statement. Replacements were not named. Hirsohi Harunari, president and CEO of Cypress, California-based Mitsubishi Motors North America, will temporarily oversee sales and marketing operations, the company said. Schembri came to Mitsubishi in February 2005 after working as U.S. marketing chief for DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz USA. Killen, also a former Mercedes-Benz USA marketing executive, was recruited by Schembri to come to Mitsubishi in August. Last year the two attracted attention to the brand by offering customers a year of free gas with the purchase of Mitsubishi vehicles. DaimlerChrysler and other manufacturers later introduced similar promotions. The pair helped stem a decline in the Japanese automaker's sales, which fell 64 percent between the end of 2002 and 2005. Mitsubishi in January posted a 2.8 percent increase.

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