Autocar Business's annual Power List 100 names the 100 most influential major movers and shakers in the automotive industry.
The Power List 100, sponsored by Keyloop, shows the importance of this industry globally: one that wields great power, but that power is constantly shifting.
The top 10 are ranked based on global reach and influence, spending power, share of voice, technological influence, future growth potential and market capitalisation.
The remaining 90 names on the list are grouped into categories, including executives from more traditional car makers to the rising powerhouses from China, the latest technology firms and mobility companies.
1 Luca de Meo, CEO, Renault
Luca de Meo’s improbable climb to the top of this chart is testament to the extraordinary turnaround he has achieved at the Renault Group. When he joined in 2020, the French company had fallen into one of the deepest financial holes ever faced by a global automotive company, after losing €8 billion the previous year.
The pandemic had abruptly turned off the cash tap and exposed all kinds of problems in a company still suffering from the dash-for-volume approach of its previous CEO but one, Carlos Ghosn. De Meo called on his years of experience gleaned at increasingly senior postings at Toyota, the Fiat Group and the Volkswagen Group, where he rose to lead Seat and Cupra, and went to work on repairing Renault.
Under de Meo’s leadership, Renault scraped a profit in 2021, before doubling it to €2.6bn in 2022 on a margin of 5.6%. For a volume player like Renault, that’s healthy, but in the first half of this year, the company broke its all-time margin record of 7% with a 7.6% result on profits of €2.12bn. Profits at all car companies have been easier to come by post-pandemic as supply constraints allowed them to reduce discounting, but de Meo has had to negotiate a series of unique bear traps that might have undone a lesser executive.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he acted swiftly to dispose of Renault’s business in Russia, which included the painful decision to drop Lada just as it was coming good after a long turnaround.
De Meo has also taken a more pragmatic approach to the Alliance with Nissan, including defusing the shareholding imbalance that has long rankled with Renault’s Japanese partner. He ripped up Renault’s product plan on day one of the job after being shown too many low-margin small cars in the design studio and shifted the launch focus to bigger, more profitable segments to underpin the company while allowing the smaller cars to remain, both at Renault and Dacia.
Shrewd platform-sharing has reduced development costs by up to 40%, he has boasted.
Challenges remain. Splitting the company into divisions, including the electric-focused Ampere, will be a tough sell to investors, who will wonder what they gain from buying shares in a Renault division so strongly connected to the core. De Meo has also yet to replicate his proven marketing magic on expanding the Alpine premium brand with its attached problematic Formula 1 team.
Add your comment