Gérard Détourbet Is Renault’s Master of Cutting Corners

Six years ago, after more than four decades with Renault SA, Gérard Détourbet decided he was done. He was in Chennai, leading a group of engineers from Renault and its strategic partner, Nissan Motor Co., in an attempt to create a low-cost vehicle for the Indian market, when some of his employees left his team rather than make cost-cutting modifications they found impractical. “It pissed me off,” he recalls. He sent a letter to Carlos Ghosn, then at the helm of the Renault-Nissan partnership, saying he was headed back to Paris without further notice.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done such a thing—in fact, it was Détourbet’s fifth resignation. That none of them was accepted is a testament to his value at Renault. After extracting a promise of total autonomy from Ghosn, Détourbet went on to produce the Kwid, a $4,000 hatchback that by 2017 represented about 82 percent of the brand’s sales in India. “What he’s done in the past 10 years explains the bulk of Renault’s rebirth as a profitable company that is able to expand outside Europe,” says consultant Bernard Jullien, the former director of French automotive think tank Gerpisa. Today, no-frills cars such as the Kwid deliver 35 percent of the carmaker’s total sales.