Opel names new heads of future product and sales

Opel has expanded its executive committee with the new position of head of future product planning, which will be filled by Vanessa Repp, who is currently head of future portfolio and cross car line at the Stellantis brand.

Repp starts in her new role on Sept. 1 and report to brand CEO Florian Huettl, Opel said Aug. 26.

Opel also announced that Tobias Gubitz, senior vice president product and pricing, will succeed Christophe Mandon as head of global sales. A new position for Mandon will be announced later, the brand said.

Huettl said in a news release that adding Repp’s position to the executive board reflected a “greater emphasis on customer-focused product development.” 

Repp has a degree in engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt. She joined Opel in 2015 as a project engineer after working on Opel projects at RLE, an engineering services company. She then worked on management projects and in 2022 she took over responsibility for long-term planning. 

Gubitz has degrees from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He joined Opel in 2014 as head of brand strategy and marketing communications after working at Henkel in marketing. In 2017 he was named international marketing director and in 2020 he became head of product and pricing, and was named to his current role since 2022.

Huettl said that Opel’s global vehicle sales increased by 15 percent to 670,000 units last year, with international sales up 62 percent, commercial vans up 26 percent and BEVs up 22 percent. He said that Gubitz would be focused on launching the new Frontera small SUV and Grandland compact SUV this year.