Mazda USA Senior VP Robert Davis 'Reassigned' After A Rough 2016

Mazda’s U.S. senior vice president for operations has been reassigned to a role in special assignments.

It does not appear to be a promotion.

Robert Davis, who held the position for more than half a decade, will no longer oversee all operations but will rather “lead teams in the ever-growing areas of recall compliance and cybersecurity, ” as well as legislation, regulations, and compliance.

Preaching patience, Mazda’s North American CEO Masahiro Moro revealed just last summer that, “ it will take Mazda two complete generations of new vehicles to fully transform itself.”

Patience may have waned, however, as the U.S. auto industry surged to an all-time record sales high in 2016 and Mazda volume tumbled 7 percent, driving the brand’s market share down to just 1.7 percent.

That was no way to successfully follow-up 2015’s performance, when Davis-led Mazda USA grew volume to a 21-year high.

2016 certainly had potential for Mazda, with a new MX-5 Miata picking up steam, a highly regarded replacement for the CX-9 after the first-generation was allowed to linger for nearly a decade, and a full calendar year for the new CX-3.

But the MX-5 is a niche player. The CX-9‘s ramp-up has been slow; only twice did Mazda report more than 2,000 monthly CX-9 sales in 2016, a feat the automaker accomplished six times with the thoroughly outdated first-gen CX-9 in 2013. And the CX-3, despite explosive growth in the subcompact crossover segment, hasn’t caught fire.

The bigger problem, of course, is that Mazda’s car sales plunged. While the symptoms are similar across the market, industry-wide volume was down 9 percent. Mazda’s already-small car lineup slid 14 percent compared with 2015. The Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 combined to lose nearly 25,000 sales.

Added to the 53-year-old Davis’s new role will be the coaching of a next generation of executives. Masahiro Moro said these changes are occurring so Mazda can “seize more than our fair share of this market shift,” and “to mentor new leaders and give those leaders a chance to play a part in the next chapter of the company’s success in the U.S.”

Moro says he will be “leaning heavily on Robert Davis to tap into his nearly 30 years of Mazda experience.”

Meanwhile, Mazda’s Ron Stettner, who was the vice president for sales and retail operations, has left the company. His replacement is Tom Donnelly. All of the changes are effective immediately.

A replacement for Robert Davis has not yet been announced.

When Davis was installed in as senior vice president for U.S. operations, Mazda’s then-North American CEO Jim O’Sullivan, said the organization was being reshaped “to fully realize Mazda’s U.S. growth potential in the next few years.”

O’Sullivan retired at the end of 2015.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.