Opel boss Uwe Hochschurtz
After less than a year, the manager is to take on a new position in the Stellantis group.
Opel is getting a new boss again. Florian Huettl, the previous head of sales and marketing at the Hessian car manufacturer, is to take over the management of the traditional company on June 1st. This was announced by the parent company Stellantis on Wednesday. He succeeds Uwe Hochschurtz, who only switched from Renault to the brand with the lightning bolt in September last year.
The move is part of a larger staffing shift at Stellantis. Accordingly, Hochschurtz moves up and becomes the new general director for European business at the fourth largest vehicle manufacturer in the world, which includes 13 other brands in addition to Opel – from Citroën and Alfa Romeo to Jeep and Chrysler.
The previous European head of Stellantis, Maxim Picat, will become the new head of purchasing and will succeed Michelle Wen, who is leaving the group, as the contact person for all suppliers.
“The daily challenges and the ongoing profound changes in the automotive industry require organizational agility,” explained Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares about the personnel changes. The company’s talents had to be used in the right places at the right time. After the successful merger of PSA (Peugeot Citroën) and Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis almost a year and a half ago, the appointments that have now been made reflect the group’s “bold ambitions”.
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At Opel, even many top managers were caught off guard by the announcements made by Stellantis boss Tavares on Wednesday morning, according to company circles. “We were all surprised,” says one manager. In addition, the Opel Supervisory Board still has to approve the appointment of Florian Huettl as the new CEO in Rüsselsheim.
Huettl was promoted from head of sales in Europe to global head of sales at Opel in March. Now the manager is to lead the entire brand and the British subsidiary Vauxhall. Huettl had previously worked at Renault for 20 years, including in France, Russia and Switzerland. He studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch-Gladbach and holds a bachelor’s degree in International Business Management.
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