After more than 34
years of service, and having reached his 65th birthday, Dr Joachim Schmidt, Executive Vice
President Sales and Marketing and part of the management team at Mercedes-Benz
Cars, has decided to hand over his responsibilities to a younger pair of hands.
The transfer will formally take place on 1 October 2013. The Daimler Board of
Management has named Ola Källenius,
currently head of AMG, as his successor.
Dr Schmidt will remain available until the end of 2013 to
support Mr Källenius in settling into his new role and to offer any advice and
assistance. For over 20 years, Dr Schmidt has served in various sales and
marketing management roles and, since October 2009, has been a member of the
Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Cars with responsibility for sales and
marketing. In this role, he is also responsible for managing the worldwide
national companies and the Executive Committee Sales & Marketing, which
comprises the passenger car, van and truck lines.
The Board of Management would like to thank Dr Schmidt for
his many years of successful service. Dr Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board
of Management of Daimler and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, said “Joachim Schmidt
understands and embodies Mercedes-Benz like almost no-one else. Under his leadership,
the brand has conquered many new regions and delighted its customers with its
traditional strengths. He has reconfigured Sales and Marketing and laid the
groundwork for bringing Mercedes-Benz into a new era.”Under Dr Schmidt’s watch,
the Mercedes-Benz brand has tapped into important new growth regions and made
huge progress in quality and customer satisfaction. He played a central role in
the greatest strategic product initiative in the company’s history and helped
open up Mercedes-Benz to new, younger target groups. With the initiative “Best
Customer Experience” he developed the retail of the future and laid the
foundations in sales and marketing for the Mercedes-Benz 2020 growth
strategy.Joachim Schmidt was born on 7 September 1948 in Sindelfingen.
He studied mathematics at the University of Stuttgart,
obtaining his science doctorate there in 1976. In 1979, he joined what was then
known as Daimler-Benz, working initially in passenger car development and then
for over 20 years in various sales and marketing management positions. Ola
Källenius as Dr Schmidt’s successor has comprehensive knowledge of the
Mercedes-Benz product portfolio and the Daimler sales structures, not least
thanks to his role as Chairman of the Management Board of Mercedes-AMG.
“With Ola Källenius we have someone with cars in his blood
taking over the reins,” said Dr Zetsche. “He knows what makes a brand a success
and has in depth knowledge of our customers and our organisation. We have him
to thank for the fact that in recent years AMG has achieved double-digit growth
rates and has significantly increased its market leadership in many markets. I
am happy he has accepted this position.”
Ola Källenius (44) has been Chairman of the Management Board
of Mercedes-AMG since 1 April 2010. Before that, he was plant manager at the
Mercedes-Benz factory in Tuscaloosa (USA), led Mercedes-Benz High Performance
Engines in Brixworth, UK, and worked at McLaren Automotive. Previous roles at
Daimler in Stuttgart include head of the Powertrain Procurement unit. Born in
Sweden, he began his career on the International Management Associate Program
in 1993, at what was then Daimler-Benz. He is a graduate of the Stockholm
School of Economics and the University of St. Gallen. A successor to Mr Källenius
as Chairman of the Management Board of Mercedes-AMG will be appointed and
announced shortly.
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