Carlos Ghosn is gone! His departure from the chairmanship of Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, however, is still rocking Tokyo. Throughout the past week, Japan's mainstream media carried, day and night, stories about the poor Lebanese-Brazilian-French corporate executive, who in 2002 was awarded Asia's Businessman of the Year by Fortune magazine.
For many in Tokyo the news was a shock but not a surprise. Yes, when he first came to Tokyo in 1999, Ghosn surprised ordinary Japanese by revolutionizing the way Nissan did its business as well as by making several million dollars a year — far more than the average executive pay at big Japanese corporations.
However, we do not consider the huge amount of money Ghosn makes as outrageous anymore. What was shocking to us is the amount of money — approximately ¥5 billion — that he allegedly underreported since 2014. Ghosn also reportedly used corporate money to buy residences in the Netherlands and three other countries.