After taking control of Aston Martin Lagonda as executive chairman, Lawrence Stroll has made his first big change to the company with a new CEO.
Tobias Moers, currently the CEO of Mercedes-AMG, will take control of Aston’s board on August 1, replacing Dr. Andy Palmer, who is out as of today. In the interim, Aston Martin’s chief manufacturing officer, Keith Stanton, will hold the CEO position.
Stroll, the Canadian businessman who orchestrated a $665 million funding of the British carmaker, said of Moers: “He is an exceptionally talented automotive professional and a proven business leader with a strong track record during his many years at Daimler AG, with whom we have a longstanding and successful technical and commercial partnership, which we look forward to continuing.”
Moers has been with Daimler for 26 years in various positions, and has been the CEO of its performance division since 2013. In that time, according to the Aston Martin website, AMG has more than doubled its product portfolio and quadrupled the number of vehicles sold. AMG also supplies V8 engines to the Gaydon, UK-based company, though Aston has said it will be moving to turbocharged V6 powertrains produced in-house.
Palmer has been head of Aston Martin since 2014, and under his leadership it has developed the Valkyrie supercar, as well as the DBX SUV, a potential volume seller with high profit expectations for the niche automaker.
But Aston Martin has also struggled financially in those years, and Palmer’s idea to make the company’s stock public two years ago has failed miserably, with share price falling 98 per cent, according to The Guardian. The concerns over Brexit and the recent Covid-19 pandemic, which has delayed production of the DBX, have certainly not helped the luxury carmaker.
*Images courtesy of Aston Martin
