Stellantis Middle-East Strengthens Leadership Team

As companies witness ground-breaking evolutions in mobility and embrace large-scale electrification in the wake of being resilient to the dire aftermath of climate-change and depletion of exhaustible resources, it has demanded policy, strategy and leadership team overhauls in their organisation structures. To shape the future of mobility in the Middle-East and secure an optimistic 22% market share in Middle-East and Africa (MEA) region, Stellantis has rejigged its leadership team. The consortium will be focussing on new-age American and European brands to drive the change and work towards the solid growth avenues as cited by it.

Sitting at the perch, is Frano Šušnjara, Stellantis’ newly appointed Group Managing Director for Middle East. Rakesh Nair, who served for a considerable period of time as the Managing Director of European brands will now be taking charge of operations as the Managing Director of American brands where his key role will be to preside over launching befitting models from Jeep, RAM, Dodge and Chrysler brands. He will also play a constructive role in focussing on and launching electric models from these brands’ fleets. 

To fill up the void for Managing Director of European brands, Neeraj Kumar, the current Head of Business Development will be positioned on this new designation and play an indispensable role in exaggerating the presence of European models in the Middle East. He will require to ardently focus on EVs coming from the stables of Peugeot in particular across passenger and Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) segments.

The new person to sit at the helm of the incumbent of Head of Business Development is Adis Omeragic, who has witnessed a surge in his position from Regional Network Manager. He will be working with the revised team framework to capitalise on regional opportunities, build healthy relations with those who have financial interest in the functioning of the company and be astute in launching the complete Stellantis group models.

In September this year, the group inked its plan being referred to as Dare Forward 2030 strategy for Middle East and Africa (MEA) which includes a full-fledged plan for attaining the objective of 22% market-share in the region and gain number 1 position in terms of volume by 2030. The group also reveals that 100% of its product-offensive will be battery propelled transitioning from 25% to beyond 70% regional production autonomy and an industrial capacity of 1-million vehicles per year by 2030.   

Changing its nomenclature from FCA to Stellantis, the group includes several brands such as Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat and Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, Vauxhall, Free2move and Leasys. Some of these brands exist in the Middle-East and the customers have taken to them facilitating their growth. The modern-age cars rolling off their assembly line bear visually striking appearance, come bristling with new-age tech and software, are well-built and offer above average performance and fuel-economy. As it embarks on a fully ‘green’ future, it would be interesting to see the innovative products that are launched in the Middle-East and whether the early-mover advantage results in tremendous pay-offs. Certainly, to seize the ambitious 22% market-share, the products will have to offer great value for the money spent and be priced competitively for the kind of showdown it expects with other brands. The new leadership team has its work cut-out for itself.