#JunSeki

As a terrible year draws to a close, Nissan can’t seem to put its bad luck behind it. In a case of “the hits keep on coming”, the automaker’s vice chief operating officer, Jun Seki, announced his departure from the company less than a month after taking on the position.

Seki, once a candidate for the CEO chair, was tasked with helping turn around the struggling company in the wake of the Carlos Ghosn scandal and concurrent sales plunge. At the same time, an American dealer group is suing Nissan over alleged Ghosn-era financial misdealings.

A merry Christmas it was not.

The hunt for Nissan’s next chairman has been narrowed to three potential candidates. Their final challenge will be impressing Renault chairman Jean-Dominique Senard. According to reports, Senard spent the better part of Tuesday interviewing Renault-Nissan veterans — via teleconference or face-to-face meetings in Paris.

Considering the laundry list of problems Nissan currently faces, it’s difficult to imagine why anybody would want the job. Maybe it’s the sizable paychecks or perhaps an eagerness to turn things around at the automaker. Either way, whoever Nissan ends up with will have at least as much as they can handle.

Let’s take a look at the candidates.