Nissan hires influential Consumer Reports car test director

Nissan has hired the director of the influential Consumer Reports car test program.

The automaker said David Champion, senior director of the Consumer Reports test center, will join Nissan, where he will become executive advisor for competitive assessment and quality.

“David Champion’s unique industry background will help ensure that the customer’s voice is evident in every product we engineer,” said Carla Bailo, Nissan’s senior vice president of research and development. “His experience in developing robust testing methods will help Nissan keep pace with the increasing complexity of our products and stay focused on continually improving our customer satisfaction ratings”

Champion will report to Steve Monk, director of vehicle evaluation and testing and chief marketability engineer for Nissan Technical Center North America, and he will be based at the automaker’s Arizona Testing Center.

Champion previously worked at Nissan as a quality-assurance engineer from 1994 to 1997.

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