At Nissan Motor's annual shareholders meeting recently, Mr Carlos Ghosn performed the standard rite of initiation into a Japanese company: the personal introduction.

Stifling his trademark mischievous grin, Mr Ghosn approached the podium to deliver what turned into a nearly two-minute speech - in flawless Japanese.

"I have not come to Japan for Renault, but for Nissan," he said. "I will do everything in my power to bring Nissan back to profitability at the earliest date possible and revive it as a highly attractive company," he told the carmaker's shareholders.

But Mr Ghosn, who started as Nissan's first non-Japanese chief operating officer this week, needs little introduction. Since Nissan and Renault signed a 643-billion yen (€5.06 billion) alliance in March, appointing Mr Ghosn and two other vice-presidents from the French carmaker to Nissan's board of directors, the 45-year-old Brazilian-born executive has been at the centre of nearly every article about Nissan's future.

He is the "master of restructuring", otherwise known as "le cost killer". He is the man who speaks several languages fluently, who had the gumption to close a Renault factory in Belgium. "The Ghosn Revolution has Begun," declared the Nihon Keizai business daily last week.

While he may have developed a cult-like following, the reception in the Japanese press and among automotive executives has betrayed a mixture of awe and anxiety.

Mr Ghosn arrives in Japan as the traditional corporate culture is coming under fire from Western management techniques, as the prolonged recession has blown a hole through lifetime employment, age-based promotion and the industrial group, or keiretsu, system.

He also comes to Nissan when the country's second-largest carmaker is close to the end of its rope. Nissan's employees have endured six years of losses out of the past seven, and watched rival Toyota Motor snatch up its hard-earned market share in Japan and overseas.

Management has promised reforms time and time again, but the company's financial condition has remained critical: as of March, Nissan had consolidated interest-bearing liabilities of 2,900 billion yen. It was this paralysis that brought Mr Yoshikazu Hanawa, Nissan president, into negotiations last year with several foreign groups, including DaimlerChrysler.

Mr Ghosn is entrusted with the daunting task of returning Nissan to profitability - and making Renault's massive investment worthwhile. Analysts say this means widespread cost cutting, shrinking the size of the workforce, closing production facilities, and revamping Nissan's lacklustre marketing strategy. Since his unofficial arrival in April, Mr Ghosn has left little doubt that he is equal to the task. But analysts and industry observers say his success will depend largely on his ability to instill Nissan executives with his enthusiasm for restructuring.

"Unless Carlos Ghosn completely changes Nissan's corporate culture and turns it upside down, he will not succeed," says a former Nissan executive.

"A lot depends on his relationship with Hanawa, and how he gets along with the management structure," says Mr Stephen Usher, analyst at Jardine Fleming Securities. The key will be winning over Nissan's eight executive vice-presidents, who oversee everything from product planning and parts purchasing, to overseas operations. "If they're on his side, he's got the management behind him," Mr Usher says.

A self-professed information hound, Mr Ghosn has not wasted any time looking for allies. Over the past two months, he has visited factories, research facilities and administrative offices. He has arranged meetings with Nissan section chiefs to ask a few basic questions: "What are the problems in your department? What needs to be done to improve the situation? What does your department contribute to Nissan?"

At Nissan, where decisions have been based on a consensus of the lower-ranking executives, Mr Ghosn's top-down style seems likely to ruffle a few feathers.

His promise to rationalise Nissan's parts purchasing, in part by encouraging joint ventures with overseas groups, presents another source of contention.

The battle over parts goes to the heart of Japanese corporate culture, where carmakers and suppliers are linked by cross-shareholdings and personal relationships. Mr Ghosn said he planned to settle the supplier question in the next six-12 months.

Changes in the dealer network are not far off, either. No matter the outcome, Mr Ghosn's direct, no-nonsense approach is likely to continue to attract attention.