TITLE: Chief Operating Officer, Enlarged Europe Region
COMPANY: Stellantis
BASED: Paris, France
AGE: 47
NATIONALITY: French

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Maxime Picat, a civil engineering graduate of the Ecole des Mines in Paris, joined PSA Group in 1998 and held management positions in manufacturing, including at PSA’s factory in Mulhouse, eastern France, and at the nearby Sochaux factory, where he became manufacturing manager. In 2007 he moved to China to become director of the group’s joint venture factory in Wuhan. In 2011 he was promoted to managing director of Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobiles (DPCA) in China. He returned to Europe in 2012 as CEO of the Peugeot brand. Picat was named PSA’s executive vice president for Europe in 2016. He was named to his current position at Stellantis in January 2021, when the new group was created.

REASON FOR WINNING

Even in such an extremely challenging year as COVID-affected 2020, Maxime Picat steered PSA Group’s Europe region, the main driver of the French automaker, to profits that exceeded its peers’ results. The Citroen, DS and Peugeot brands last year delivered a 7.3 percent operating margin, slightly below the 2019 record of 8.5 percent -- despite three months of production stoppages due to lockdowns in Europe.

This year Picat delivered even more while heading the enlarged Europe region at Stellantis, created in January by the merger of PSA with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. In the first half, his region reported an 8.8 percent operating margin, even higher than what PSA Group alone had achieved before the merger.

Picat’s hard work at Stellantis has just begun, with the realignment of nine brands (Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, DS, Fiat, Lancia, Jeep, Opel/Vauxhall and Peugeot) and two completely independent management, technical, purchasing and distribution structures that need to be combined into a more-efficient single entity. That combination is set to deliver most of the more than 5 billion euros a year in synergies envisaged when Stellantis was created.