VOLVO management changes accompany news that its performance car arm Polestar is to be a new electrified high performance car company as a separate brand, marking the latest stage in Volvo’s ongoing global transformation.
In order to drive the development of the brand, Volvo also announced that Thomas Ingenlath, senior vice president design at Volvo, will assume the position of chief executive officer at Polestar.
Nick Connor, former Volvo Cars UK MD and Polestar CEO for the past year, returns to Volvo to take up a role as vice-president within the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region.
Mr Ingenlath has been the inspiration behind Volvo’s award-winning design renaissance in recent years and will maintain overall responsibility for the design of Volvo Cars as chief design officer and remain on the Volvo Cars executive management team.
Hakan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars, said: “Thomas heading up the Polestar organisation shows our commitment to establishing a truly differentiated stand-alone brand within the Volvo Car Group.”
Volvo has announced the appointment of Robin Page as new senior vice president design. Mr Page, head of interior design for the past four years, will take over Volvo’s design operations and will be responsible for running Volvo’s design operations.
Before joining Volvo Cars in 2013, Mr Page was head of interior design at Bentley Motors since 2001. Whilst at Bentley he was responsible for the interior designs of the Continental and Mulsanne ranges, as well as the interior design for the state limousine for the Queen. At other stages in his career he also performed design work for Rolls-Royce and Bugatti.
Mr Ingenlath will be joined at Polestar by Jonathan Goodman, who will become chief operating officer. Mr Goodman moves from his position as senior vice president corporate communication at Volvo Cars.
Mr Samuelsson said: “With 25 years of commercial experience in the automotive industry, Jonathan is ideally placed to provide operational experience alongside Thomas’s vision, building on the experienced management team that will drive the Polestar brand forwards.
“Polestar will be a credible competitor in the emerging global market for high-performance electrified cars. With Polestar, we are able to offer electrified cars to the world’s most demanding, progressive drivers in all market segments.”
David Ibison replaces Jonathan Goodman as Volvo’s senior vice president corporate communications. He was formerly vice president corporate communications and global head of media relations at Volvo Cars, having joined the company three and a half years ago in January 2014.
Mr Ibison spent over 20 years as a foreign correspondent in various postings around the world, mainly for the Financial Times (FT). He was most recently the Nordic Bureau Chief for the FT between 2006 and 2010, based in Stockholm.
Prior to that, he was the FT’s deputy bureau chief in Japan between 2000 and 2006 after a stint as a financial services and investment banking correspondent in London between 1999 and 2000.
Before joining the FT, Mr Ibison was the business news editor for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where he lived between 1992 and 1999 after being a financial journalist in London.
Volvo Cars acquired 100 per cent of Polestar Performance in July 2015, having worked together in motorsport since 1996. In the future, Polestar will offer Polestar-branded cars that will no longer carry a Volvo logo, as well as optimisation packages for Volvo’s range of cars under the Polestar Engineered brand.
Polestar will enjoy specific technological and engineering synergies with Volvo Cars and benefit from significant economies of scale as a result of its connection to Volvo. These synergies will allow it to design, develop and build world-beating electrified high-performance cars.
Mr Ingenlath said: “I am really excited to take up the challenge of establishing this exciting brand, developing a fabulous portfolio of bespoke products and channelling the passion we have throughout the Polestar team. The next chapter in Polestar’s history is just beginning.”
Polestar will make further announcements about its products, industrialisation and commercial plans in the autumn.
