Aston Martin has appointed its third chief executive in three years, with Tobias Moers stepping down after just two years at the helm.
Moers will leave the British carmaker’s board immediately, but will stay until the end of July to “support the leadership team with a smooth transition”, announced Aston Martin Lagonda.
Former Ferrari boss Amedeo Felisa will replace him as CEO. Felisa joined the board of Aston Martin as non-executive director in July 2021.
Aston Martin, known as the maker of the sports cars used in the James Bond film franchise, has gone through many turbulent times in its 109-year history. His latest problems began with listing on the stock market in 2018, which quickly deteriorated as high listing costs forced him to seek new financing.
Fashion billionaire Lawrence Stroll stepped in to save the company in early 2020, forcing former Nissan chief operating officer Andy Palmer and Moers poaching from Daimler’s high-performance division, Mercedes-AMG, to take over.
Moers is seeing a period of downsizing by Aston Martin as it seeks to reduce the number of cars left at dealers – which Stroll saw as a key step in restoring an element of brand exclusivity, even as it tries to more than double sales for 10,000 per year.
However, the financial results for the first three months of 2022 show that the company continues to struggle. The pre-tax loss for the quarter almost tripled to £ 112 million. He made £ 232 million in revenue, which is a long way from reaching his £ 2 billion target a year.
Felisa, who led Italian sports car maker Ferrari for eight years as chief executive, will oversee the electrification of the Aston Martin range and reorganize the company’s structure and hold meetings in the coming weeks. Among them is Roberto Fedeli, another former Ferrari chief executive, who was named Aston Martin’s chief technical officer on Wednesday.
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Stroll, who serves as chief executive, said Moers “joined Aston Martin at a critical time for the company and brought considerable discipline to its operations.” The benefits of these actions are clear in the company’s improved operational efficiency and in our great new products.
“Now the business needs to enter a new phase of growth with a new leadership team and structure to ensure that we achieve our goals.”
Stroll said Felisa had “extensive knowledge of both Aston Martin’s business and the wider automotive industry with an excellent reputation and previous experience as a leader in a major ultra-luxury car maker.”
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