• Business Week, Friday, March 7, 2008 11:45 AM

On Feb. 8, Byung Mo Ahn, the president of Kia Motors, fired Len Hunt, president and CEO of Kia Motors America, and Ian Beavis, marketing vice president. It marked the fourth shakeup in three years for Kia's American operation. The U.S. unit of parent company Hyundai, meanwhile, has churned through four top executives in five years.

The management shakeups come at a critical period. Both Hyundai and Kia, which were originally marketed to American consumers as utilitarian econoboxes, are trying to move upscale and sell sedans that can compete with Cadillac and BMW. They are also banking on rapid growth in the U.S.

The problem is that the companies keep booting out American talent. And many of the American executives who do stay find parent Hyundai Motor's corporate culture to be suffocating. Consumer psychology is something that Hyundai Motor has never mastered, says one consultant. At bottom, it has always had the mind-set of a manufacturer, not a marketer.

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