The board of creeky global automaker Stellantis is meeting in New York this week and I wrote this morning that “I don’t see a version of this meeting that doesn’t end with someone losing their job.” We’ve now got the full list, and it starts at the top with the ‘retirement’ of Carlos Tavares, pictured above, in 2026.
How did we get here? Tavares went on a cost-cutting binge when he came on board to Stellantis, which was put together from the bones of PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Fiat Chrysler, and some other odds and ends. That worked during the pandemic and a global shortage of cars allowed Stellantis to bring in massive profits.
This led to Tavares pulling in a lot of compensation, but also to a lot of acrimony from partners. Lately, there’s seemed like there was an absence of an obvious plan for the future. Tavares himself called his perception of the company’s prospects in North America “arrogant” though his general view is that we’re in a “Darwinian” period in the car industry where hard decisions have to be made to be one of the survivors.
With the board meeting coming up, it was leaked that Stellantis was already looking for a new CEO to replace Tavares when his contract ended in 2026. What’s happening now is, uh, he’s retiring in 2026. It’s as much a surprise to me as, possibly, it is to him.
Here’s the word from Stellantis:
John Elkann, Chairman of the Board of Directors, said: “The Board of Directors is unanimous in its support of Carlos Tavares and for the decisive changes announced today. We are confident that these steps to simplify our organisation will strengthen our leadership team as they work to restore the Company’s performance to industry leading levels.”
The Company also confirmed that the formal process to identify a successor to Carlos Tavares, when he retires at the conclusion of his CEO term in early 2026 is already under way. This is being led by a Special Committee of the Board Chaired by John Elkann and will complete its work by the fourth quarter of 2025.
That’s not the only change. Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa will get promoted to North American COO while continuing to serve as head of Jeep. Jean Phillipe Imparato will take over as CEO of Europe, replacing Uwe Hochgeschurtz who “will leave the Company.”
The biggest shakeup is probably CFO Natalie Knight, who is also “leaving the company” and getting replaced by Doug Ostermann, formerly the COO of Stellantis China. Or maybe it’s Davide Grasso being moved out of his job as CEO of Maserati and being replaced by Santo Ficili, who also takes over Alfa Romeo. Grasso, though, hasn’t been shoved out of a window and maybe will get another position within the company.
And what does Tavares have to say about it?
“During this Darwinian period for the automotive industry, our duty and ethical responsibility is to adapt and prepare ourselves for the future, better and faster than our competitors to deliver clean, safe and affordable mobility. The newly appointed leadership team members will make their valuable contributions to our overall team’s determination to tackle the challenges ahead, reinforcing and accelerating our transformation to become the preferred mobility tech company. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to lay the foundations for Stellantis’ future success.”
Darwin is clearly at work at Stellantis.
Shocked. I am shocked.
Is the term “creeky” or “creaky”?
Definitely “creeky”, the whole Stellantis deal smells like a stagnant creek.
Not soon enough.
That “retirement” is gonna get moved up to about a week after they find someone willing to work for tens of millions of dollars a year, not 2026. Being a CEO of a (sort of) American company is like being a College Football Coach, where it often seems to be a more profitable move to do a terrible job and get paid all your money to leave (retire) early instead of actually, you know, doing what you said you were going to do during the interview. And often they get to do it all over again for someone else…
I would happily do this job for $50,000 to $70,000 a year.
I have absolutely no skills or experience in this field, so I might be over bidding.
Upon the occasion of my impending retirement I would like to thank all those dishonest union workers who contributed so much to my $100 million golden parachute. I look forward to spending more time with my fat stacks and my wife, Morgan Fairchild.
I hear Carlos Ghosn needs a job.
Every once in a while, I enjoy seeing a little reminder that John Elkann still has his hand officially on the tiller of the absolutely strangely cobbled together ship that is Stellantis. It’s nice to see a drop of Agnelli blood still at the top
He’s retiring like I retired from my job in January at which time there were massive layoffs but that’s just coincidence you guys, honest.
2026 is a long way off. But also too soon to see any improvement in the event that he suddenly snapped and decided to start making good decisions right now, product development timelines being what they are
Why the wait? Do they want to clear out all of his people and figure it will take a while to find someone from the outside or who is potentially qualified within the company that wasn’t one of his people, but somehow wasn’t pushed out? The crazy thing to me is that I saw this coming (as I’m sure plenty of other outside non-C-suiters did) back during the pandemic days when they were raking in profits for over-optioned, outdated, under-reliable cars with little new product seemingly in the pipeline (even fewer with good prospects) that would be needed when the very obviously anomalous gravy train derailed, yet none of them—not the executives nor, apparently, the board—did or they just chose to ignore it.
What was it called when Deckard killed replicants in Blade Runner? Oh yeah, retirement.
“I would like to thank everyone who contributed to lay the foundations for Stellantis’ future success”
That’s a bold prediction, let’s see how it actually turns out first!!