Oliver Zipse will be the new CEO of BMW. The decision came during the Supervisory Board meeting held at the Spartanburg, North Carolina factory. The German manager will take the place of Harald Krüger who announced his intention to resign on 6 July after the company's board of directors said it was uncertain about his contract renewal. His contract expired in 2020.
Zipse, 55, has worked at BMW since 1991 and until now has been responsible for production. The new position of CEO will be operational from next August 16th. It won't be an easy task for him: the Bavarian house has been in trouble for some time. In 2016 it lost its lead in global luxury sales, overtaken by its longtime rival, Mercedes-Benz.
“Zipse will certainly be tasked with increasing BMW's share of the electric vehicle market and another area of focus could be finding the right balance with the number of models within the portfolio,” said Jeff Schuster, president of forecasting. global with LMC Automotive. “BMW has taken a fragmentation approach in the past, with some models overlapping others within the showroom.”
On the Frankfurt stock exchange, the BWM share gained 1,21% to $66,95.
