Chrysler hires key Toyota manager

DETROIT - Chrysler pulled off a major coup yesterday, hiring away Toyota's top North American executive, the highly regarded Jim Press, to run its sales and marketing operations.

Press, 60, formerly president and chief operating officer for Toyota in North America and the first non-Japanese member of Toyota Motor Corp.'s board of directors, will become Chrysler vice chairman and president.

He joins new chairman and chief executive officer Robert Nardelli and Tom LaSorda on Chrysler L.L.C.'s top management team. LaSorda already has and will retain the same titles as Press.

LaSorda will run the company's manufacturing and purchasing operations, while Press will handle sales, marketing and product strategy, company spokesman Mike Aberlich said.

Hiring Press is Chrysler's second major executive announcement since August, when the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management L.P. took control of 80.1 percent of the company from DaimlerChrysler AG. Cerberus announced Aug. 6 that Nardelli, a former Home Depot Inc. CEO, would become Chrysler's chairman and CEO.

"Tom LaSorda and I are thrilled that one of the most successful executives in the history of the auto industry has joined our leadership team at the New Chrysler," Nardelli said in a statement.

Toyota said Shigeru Hayakawa, a Japanese veteran at the company and Toyota managing officer, would be the new president of Toyota North America.

"Toyota has been the centerpiece of my life. This was the most difficult decision I have made," Press said in a statement.

Press, an American, has been with Toyota for 37 years. His rise at Toyota was widely seen as furthering the company's effort to bolster its standing as a multinational corporation.

Press will be asked to help turn things around at Chrysler, which has had problems of late in its sales and marketing operations.