After Fiat mega-merger flop, Senard faces added pressure to fix Renault

When Jean-Dominique Senard took the helm of Renault five months ago, his main job was to rebuild trust with Nissan Motor Co. following the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, the industry luminary who held together the carmakers’ two-decade alliance.

Instead, Senard pressed Nissan for a merger it didn’t want, then pursued a mega-deal with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles without telling the Japanese company. Those talks have now collapsed in acrimony between Fiat and France, Renault’s most powerful shareholder, after Nissan declined to explicitly support the deal.

The turbulence of his brief tenure seems to belie Senard’s profile as the methodical consensus-builder who can steady