CYPRESS, Calif. -

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. revealed late last week the new president and chief executive officer of Mitsubishi Motors North America replacing Shinichi Kurihara, who is returning to the automaker’s base operations in Japan.

Taking his place at the helm of MMNA will be Yoichi Yokozawa, who became MMNA’s senior executive vice president in June.

This move is effective April 1.

Before his time with MMNA, Yokozawa worked in Mitsubishi’s overseas business management office as a corporate general manager, a role he began in 2006.

“Yokozawa brings a strong financial and strategic planning background to his new position as President and CEO of MMNA. He has worked within MMC managing various levels of financial, business, merger and acquisition, alliance and corporate strategy tasks during the past 13 years,” officials noted.

He started his Mitsubishi at the automaker’s European headquarters. In that role — which began in 1998 — he was in charge of the European operation’s financial planning.

Meanwhile, looking at Kurihara’s experience in more detail, his other U.S. positions included serving in the product planning and marketing department from 1984 to 1988. He would come back to MMNA in 1996 to serve as senior vice president of product strategy until 2001.

Kurihara became president and CEO in 2009.