British sports car maker Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. appointed Nissan Executive Andy Palmer (51) as its new CEO. Aston Martin’s previous CEO, Ulrich Bez (70) left in 2013. At Nissan Andy Palmer was Chief Planning Officer (and was earlier also involved in Nissan’s New York taxi project). He recently was also very much involved with the Infiniti luxury brand. According to BusinessWeek the Brit is moving to a niche manufacturer, which sold 4,200 sports cars in 2013, after 23 years with Nissan, Japan’s second-biggest automaker with 5.2 million global deliveries in until March 2014. Aston Martin, best known for vehicles featured in James Bond films, is investing 500 million pounds ($827 million) by 2017 to develop models to remain viable.

• Andy Palmer moves from Nissan to Aston Martin as CEO. Photo: Andy Palmer.