(July 14, 2010) LOS ANGELES — The Renault-Nissan Motor Co. alliance has hired Jim Press, former head of Toyota's U.S. unit, as a consultant for the group's global sales and marketing, according to Bloomberg News.

Press, 63, who most recently was Chrysler Group's vice chairman and president, has worked for Renault-Nissan for about four months, said Simon Sproule, a spokesman for the alliance.

“He's visited with our dealers in the States, Europe and Japan and has already begun providing substantial input,” Sproule said by phone.

Toyota in 2007 named Press to its board of directors, the first such appointment of a non-Japanese executive. He left the company later that year to join Chrysler after it was purchased by Cerberus Capital Management and departed last fall following Chrysler's emergence from bankruptcy under the control of Fiat.