PSA Peugeot Citroën names former Airbus chief Louis Gallois as chairman

[Haltech]

Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Peugeot, Citroën



Change is afoot at PSA. The parent company of both Peugeot and Citroën is on the verge of securing major funding from both the French government and from Chinese automaker Dongfeng, it recently named former Renault COO Carlos Tavares as its chief executive officer, and now it has selected its new chairman.

The latter role, once approved by the shareholders, will belong to one Louis Gallois who, as the longtime CEO of aerospace consortium Airbus, is no stranger to the transportation industry. He will, however, be the first to chair the PSA board from outside the Peugeot family, which has been pressured to relinquish control by France's current Socialist government, with which Gallois maintains strong ties.

Gallois won't, of course, be the first executive to move from a major aerospace concern to head up a major automaker. Alan Mullaly made a similar transition when he moved from Boeing to Ford. (Red Poling, Bob Lutz and JRD Tata, to name just a few, all had aviation backgrounds before getting into the automotive industry as well.) Whether Gallois can succeed in turning PSA around in the same manner that Mullaly did remains to be seen.

The French automaker is ranked as the eighth largest in the world (behind Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Ford, Nissan and Honda) but one of the largest in Europe, ahead of Renault, Daimler and Fiat.Continue reading PSA Peugeot Citroën names former Airbus chief Louis Gallois as chairman

PSA Peugeot Citroën names former Airbus chief Louis Gallois as chairman originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 21 Mar 2014 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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