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TITLE: Board Member for Production
COMPANY: BMW Group 
BASED: Munich 
AGE: 53
NATIONALITY: Serbian

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Milan Nedeljkovic, a native of Serbia, studied engineering a RWTH Aaachen and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has a doctorate in engineering from the Technical University of Munich. He joined BMW in 1993 as a trainee, and held management and planning positions at factories in Germany and the UK. In 2018 he was named senior vice president Corporate Quality, and in 2019 was named to his current position as head of production for the group.

REASON FOR WINNING

BMW has taken a bigger leap into electrification with the i4 and iX models, the brand’s first mainstream, mass-production EVs. With many more models to come and a new platform dubbed Neue Klasse, BMW is realigning its production network to focus on the challenge ahead -- while also ensuring that combustion-powered vehicles remain at the top of the quality rankings.

This year, J.D. Power has honored BMW factories in Regensburg, Germany; Born, Netherlands; and Leipzig, Germany, for their outstanding initial quality results.

Looking ahead, BMW is refocusing its historic Munich factory on electric vehicles and moving combustion engine production to existing factories in the UK and Austria. "Restructuring our engine production network is a strategic move geared toward the future," Nedeljkovic says.