PARIS -- Ampere, Renault Group’s EV business unit, has named Anne-Catherine Brieux, a top executive in the group’s quality department, as head of industrial operations, replacing Luciano Biondo, who has left the automaker.
Brieux, who has held engineering and management posts at Renault since joining the company in 1997, will be responsible for Ampere’s four industrial sites in northern France, as well as overseeing purchasing, quality, production engineering, supply chain and IT, Renault said on July 26. She started in her post on Aug. 1, and reports to group and Ampere CEO Luca de Meo.
Brieux’s positions at Renault included manufacturing engineer at the Cleon engine factory, starting in 1997; lead positions in engine design, including for the Dacia Duster, starting in 2006; and manufacturing management at the Cleon, France, engine factory, and at Renault’s assembly plants in Valladolid and Palencia, Spain, from 2011. In 2023, she became director of quality strategy, suppliers and development in Renault Group's quality department.
Biondo, a native of Valenciennes in northern France, joined Renault in 2020 from Toyota. His first automotive position was at PSA Group’s Sochaux, France, factory, starting in 1991. From 1993, Biondo helped launch the van factory at Sevelnord, France. He joined Toyota in 2000, and helped start the paint department at Toyota’s then-new factory in his hometown. In 2013 he was named general manager of the Valenciennes plant.
Ampere became a standalone business unit of Renault Group in 2022, as the automaker sought to balance the need to develop and build EVs separate from its internal-combustion engine-based cars. It has about 10,000 employees and four key sites, all in northern France: assembly plants in Maubeuge and Douai, and component factories in Cleon and Ruitz. Future production of EVs will also be in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, which will build the coming Twingo low-cost EV.
