Honda Cars : Accavitti expands Honda role | 2013 New Honda Car Reviews 0

by Mark Rechtin of www.autonews.com

LOS ANGELES -- Mike Accavitti, the former Chrysler executive who became American Honda's chief marketing officer in 2011, is adding responsibility for several key departments, including product planning.
Accavitti, 54, has been promoted to senior vice president of automobile operations. While continuing to supervise national marketing operations, he will add product planning, logistics, sales and production planning, distribution, quality assurance, company vehicle administration and market research.

His ascension and new duties should give American Honda more say in the parent company's product planning process. Although Honda's U.S. engineering team is heavily involved in many products sold in North America, decisions on global platforms often are deferred to Japan.

The volume-leading Accord, Civic, Odyssey and CR-V have been redesigned in the last two years, so r&d work on the next generation is just beginning.

The pairing of Accavitti with John Mendel, executive vice president of sales, mirrors the successful structure Honda used last decade, when sales boss Dick Colliver and product chief Tom Elliott operated as a two-man team.

The change takes effect April 1.

Mendel, 58, remains in charge of American Honda sales, sales communications and dealer operations. In an interesting split, Accavitti handles national marketing and advertising, while Mendel oversees regional marketing and advertising.

Accavitti's new duties give more clout to an area of American Honda previously overseen by Art St. Cyr, vice president of corporate planning and logistics. St. Cyr retains those duties, but now reports to Accavitti.
As before, both Accavitti and Mendel will report to American Honda President Tetsuo Iwamura, who recently was promoted to executive officer of Honda Motor Co.

Accavitti joined Honda after a short stint at Cisco Systems, which followed a 25-year career at Chrysler. He was president of the Dodge brand and lead marketing executive at Chrysler Group before his 2009 departure.

Currently, Accavitti's main job is overseeing the $900 million national advertising agency review for the Honda and Acura brands. A decision regarding the final four candidates, including incumbent agency RPA, is expected by the end of March.

Source;
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