Karen Nakamura

Key Account Manager - Maritime Logistics

​

With 35 years of automotive experience at Ford Motor Company, Karen Nakamura worked in various organizations including Purchasing, Lincoln-Mercury Marketing Plans, Sales Operations, Customer Service Division and Fleet Government Sales. In Ford’s Six Sigma program Ms. Nakamura developed and published Ford’s Global Transportation Inspection Standards.

In 2003, Ms. Nakamura moved into Logistics as Ford Motor Company’s Traffic manager with responsibility for shipping over 600,000 built-up vehicles from production sites globally to over 130 countries worldwide.  Ms. Nakamura oversaw production at US port processors to ensure vehicles requiring homologation were completed on a timely basis to meet ocean carrier cut-offs and allocations.  For locations outside the US, where port processing was not available, Ms. Nakamura ensured a robust vehicle receiving and transportation inspection/repair process was in place prior to moving Ford vehicles to the port.

In Ford’s Six Sigma program, as a certified Black Belt, Ms. Nakamura was responsible for training Ford and agency personnel in the DMAIC discipline.  Karen was also responsible for managing/ providing guidance to the Termed Green Belts on their projects. Ms. Nakamura’s Black Belt projects resulted in the reduction of dealer claim incentives rejects by 99%.  She also published Ford’s Global Transportation Inspection Manual, which details Ford’s requirements for receiving, inspecting and reporting transportation concerns globally and is imbedded in Ford’s Global Terms and Conditions for ocean freight contracts.

Previous to Karen’s involvement in Export operations, she worked in Government Sales and was responsible for administering bid programs for Ford’s North American dealers bidding on government tenders.