Stellantis shuffles China leadership, names executives to Leapmotor board

PARIS -- After taking a stake in the Chinese EV maker Leapmotor, Stellantis has shuffled its leadership in China, naming current COO Gregoire Olivier as head of a new liaison office to Leapmotor, and promoting CFO Doug Ostermann to COO.

Olivier and Ostermann will also serve as board members at Leapmotor. Both he and Ostermann will report to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

As head of the liaison office, Olivier will oversee the creation of a joint venture between the two companies, and coordinate the use of Stellantis’ distribution and sales operations, among other responsibilities.

"Gregoire and Doug have been working hand-in-hand over the last two years to craft a new strategy and open new ways of growing our business, and I trust both of them to give a new impetus in their respective roles,” Tavares said in a news release on Wednesday.

Olivier joined Stellantis in 2006 as head of PSA Group’s parts-maker Faurecia, after working in the French civil service and other industries.

At PSA, Olivier became senior vice president China in 2010 and in 2016 was named senior vice president for mobility services. He was named head of PSA's China operations in 2020, and retained that position at Stellantis when PSA merged with Fiat Chrysler in 2021 to form the group.

Ostermann joined Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2016 as group treasurer, after working in other industries for a decade. He started his career at General Motors in 1995. Ostermann was given added responsibility as FCA's head of global business development in 2018, and became CFO China for Stellantis in January 2021. 

In recent years Stellantis has had a very small presence in China, the largest global auto market. It was once the largest single market for PSA, with more than 700,000 sales annually in the mid-2010s.

PSA’s sales in China fell sharply as domestic automakers took a larger share of the mainstream market there and consumer tastes shifted toward SUVs. Fiat Chrysler also struggled, and Stellantis abruptly terminated a Jeep joint venture with GAC in China in 2022.

In the third quarter of 2023, Stellantis sold just 37,000 vehicles in China. 

To regain momentum in China, Stellantis said last week that it would invest about 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) to acquire a 20 percent equity stake in Leapmotor's parent company. The two companies will set up a Dutch-based joint venture called Leapmotor International. It will be controlled by Stellantis, which will have a 51 percent stake.

The joint venture targets 500,000 sales outside of China by 2030, according to Stellantis's third-quarter results presentation, which also said that Leapmotor aims to sell 1 million units annually in China in the long term.