• December 1, 2008

Shinichi Kurihara will succeed Hiroshi Harunari as president and CEO of Mitsubishi Motors North America.

Effective in January, Kurihara will take his third assignment in the U.S. He is currently senior executive officer in the Product Strategy Office in Japan, where he directs the company's product planning, marketing and brand development worldwide.

Kurihara's previous U.S. assignments were from 1984 to 1988 in product planning and from 1996 to 2001, when he was SVP/product strategy at Mitsubishi's Cypress, Calif.-based North American office.--Karl Greenberg