People to Watch in 2000

Who will make big news in the business world this year? Who will emerge from relative obscurity to become a major player? To start the new year, Times business reporters selected people from their beats who they believe will be among those to watch in 2000--in Southern California, across the country and around the world. Some are well known, having made big news in previous years. Others are not exactly household names but nevertheless are likely to make a major impact in their fields.

Of course, there’s no way to predict just what’s going to happen in the next 12 months. Nor can any such list be complete--there’s always the come-from-nowhere phenom who’ll surprise everyone. But it’s a good bet that if you follow the fortunes of these 22, you’ll see the top business stories of 2000 unfold.

Carlos Ghosn of Nissan Motor

Every top executive’s head is on the line: It is part of being in business.

It takes a special breed, though, to publicly acknowledge the presence of a corporate guillotine and then dare the world to drop the blade.

Carlos Ghosn did just that when he took the reins at Japan’s No. 2 auto maker, Nissan Motor Co., last summer, announcing that if he and his team couldn’t turn the ailing company around and show a profit for the year ending March 31, 2001, they would all be replaced.

With an expected $5.6-billion loss for the 1999-2000 fiscal year to come back from, Ghosn’s job won’t be easy. That alone makes the 45-year-old executive well worth watching this year.

But there’s more.

Brazilian-born Ghosn--who earned the nickname “Le Cost Killer” for the ax he wielded as executive vice president of Renault of France and before that at tire maker Michelin--must bend a heretofore-unyielding Japanese corporate structure to fit the Gallic model in which he grew up. And he must do it while rewriting Japanese management codes that stress corporate loyalty, lifetime employment and closed-loop supply systems.

With DaimlerChrysler--formed more than a year ago in Daimler-Benz’s acquisition of Chrysler Corp.--having a hard time melding American and German corporate cultures, how much harder will it be to find a way to blend the far more xenophobic French and Japanese systems?

And Ghosn has to do it with that self-imposed deadline hanging over his head.