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.
I’ve been asking how the board has not fired Tavares yet. Good to know they were listening.
I take the timeframe as an indication that they’ll find someone new next year and quietly transition most of the decision-making to that person in 2025 and by the time Tavares “retires” he’ll be nothing more than a figurehead. At least that’s how I’d do it.
Also, anyone know what Tim Kuniskis is up to these days? Asking for a friend.
He used to inspire a lot of confidence from the top managers at Peugeot and Citroën, but I that has gone now.
Suddenly realised the new cars are mainly extremely ugly or boring, or like the C5X just not selling because they cost way too much.
And he managed to piss off the concessionaire network so much some effectively stopped selling new and concentrated on second hand (some complicated deal where the cars ordered were actually delivered, on paper, direct to customers, and not through the concession, meaning the concession said they got screwed.).
Still I bet the estate agents brochures with dog ears on the pages for places €5 million places sunny are piling up on his desk.
The Autopian’s commitment to putting Jon Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan in all the Tavares articles is … something. I guess this will keep churning on for a few more months while Tavares is still in the automotive news? Nothing against Lovitz, he and his characters are hilarious. But I cringe every time I see you guys do this! Maybe I am way off the mark here – is this a big hit for lots of other readers?? Lets hear what ya’ll think about this. Are you all chuckling at this instead of cringing?
I like it! And it makes me smile bigly every time I see it. Good job there Autopian.
The photo is a perfect representation of this weasel.
Yes, the rest of us are chuckling, to the point that if we read another article about Tavares, we are mentally inserting “pictured above” and imagining Lovitz.
I know nothing of Tavares outside of these reports but I like Lovitz and the gag always makes me laugh.
OK, point conceded then. The dedication is certainly laudable lol.
This is so hilarious…I hope they do it forever
Love it. And the consistency is delicious! *licks fingers
God, “preferred mobility tech company.” I miss cars.
This reminds me of a former employer. Things were steady and everyone was (generally) happy. New CEO rolls in, makes a bunch changes that return short-term yields, renegotiates for higher bonuses in subsequent years, and then rakes in the money before “retiring” when his contract ends while the company flounders.
Luckily for my former employer, the CEO that took over was someone with a very different mentality that righted the ship and kept the company from going under or being sold off piecemeal.
Time will tell if the Stellantis board can find a new CEO with the right vision to keep it from the disaster it is heading for right now, but for some reason I don’t have high hopes.
The biggest issue I have is why does Carlos get to hold onto his golden parachute while trying to do to little too late just before being called on the carpet in NYC?
Likely really good contract language. Another company I worked for had a dud CEO who apparently was really good with contracts. I don’t know all the details, but his contract had a clause that detailed things he could be fired for that were considered “for cause” (stuff like harassment, malfeasance, theft, etc.). Job, or company, performance was not one of those, and unless he was fired “for cause”, termination triggered a lump-sum payout of his remaining contract salary. In the end, the company board ended up just taking a more hands-on approach to hold his hand until his contract ended and they could hire someone better.
In a few years, who will we hate more for ruining a great company? Ghosn or Tavares?
What a wonderful world it would be if, instead of receiving golden parachutes, underperforming C-Suite executives would instead have their compensation packages evenly distributed to the rank-and-file employees before being kicked to the curb.
(/wakes up groggily) I must’ve bumped my head. What did I say?
Why wait the year+? Why not now? Why force the company to continue to suffer under him?
Probably a big golden parachute they have to pay now, vs potentially less comp if the company doesn’t perform in 2025.
Yeah, Stellantis doesn’t have college football money to buy out Charlie’s contract like some FBS teams can with their coaches.
Geez I hope the guy from Jeep doesn’t get the job. I’ll have to change my name.
I, too, would like to retire to spend more time with my money.
MOPAR OR NO CAR(los)!
Carlos Tavares on Stellantis’ future in the US: “It STINKS!”
Yes Mr. Sherman, everything stinks.
Shocked. I am shocked.
Well, not that shocked.
Is the term “creeky” or “creaky”?
Definitely “creeky”, the whole Stellantis deal smells like a stagnant creek.
Everybody’s high on consolation
Everybody’s trying to tell me what is right for me
I need a drink and a quick decision
Now it’s up to me, woo, what will be
I’m gone oh I, oh I, oh I
I’d better learn how to face it
I’m gone oh I, oh I’d
I’d pay the devil for some good news
I’m gone, oh I, what went wrong
He’s out of touch, out of time, Chryslers out of its head when he’s around
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.
Shhh! Not so loud!
Heh, even Nissan kept getting newish products constantly, so even he’d be an improvement over Tavares.
Tavares studied under Ghosn, so it would probably be a lateral move, at best.
I mean, in terms of new products ending up sucking, yes. But Ghosn’s actual want to do things here in North America actually gives us proof he wanted to do things (even if he’s just as corrupt, financially or morally), which is far better than CT’s reluctance to do anything over here, thinking the EU is the bigger and better market to be in.
Except that Carlos approved the near crippling cheapo CVT trans across the board and catered to the fleet market at super low profit margins. There is a reason that one had to flea to the middle east.
Tavares is also not forcing anyone to put out more product in the US, while Nissan got multiple new models and provided something more in terms of updates then the lack of any worthwhile updates to CDJR products that are stagnant from Ghosen.
Tavares might have given the world the junk JATCO’s, but Ghosen at least kept wanting to bring products out to Nissan USA. If Nissan was Carlos’s, it’d probably have already filed bankruptcy 7 years ago.
…and a new Superyacht.
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
Yea maybe but questionable bussiness sense. Why agree to contract terms in an employee’s favor? What had Carlos done so far up to that point in his career to justify a golden parachute without penalties for running the company into the ground?
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
Exactly. 2024 is almost done, so we’re looking at a year, which is what they’ll need to find a decent external successor anyway.
And it really does need to be external, I honestly don’t think there’s enough people left inside who have a clue
Unfortunately, it probably also means they’re going to have to pay, Stellantis is a shit show with a lot to turn around, anyone competent is going to need it to be worth their while to leave a most likely better organization and join that mess
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!!