Alexandre
We only talk about Italian brands here, but I'm going to make an exception today! The French brand Alpine has appointed its new CEO: Philippe Krief! Does the name ring a bell?
And yet! In addition to his time at Ferrari, he has also been the technical director of Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio! The man behind the Giorgio platform!
I was working at Ferrari at the time, and I got a phone call from Sergio Marchionne saying, "You have to come and design the new Alfa Romeo Giulia. We need to do something completely different. Please surround yourself with a number of guys and think about the project. You've got two years and two months!"
Sergio Marchionne to Philippe Krief in 2013
And yes, this engineer, who has always held positions of technical responsibility, began his career at Michelinthen went to Fiatthen Ferrari (he worked on the chassis of the 458 Speciale), to become technical director ofAlfa Romeo in 2013 as part of the development of the Giulia and Stelvio. He then returned to Ferrari as Technical Director.
A fine career, with 25 years with Italian brands.
Without much announcement, he had returned rather discreetly to France, this time to Alpine since March 2023. Here, once again, he occupies an "Engineering & Product Performance" technical position on the sports car side (as luck would have it, in May 2023 Alpine announces the end of its partnership with Lotus).
On July 20, 2023, he was promoted to Alpine brand manager.replacing Laurent Rossi.
A logical step in his successful career. We can only hope that Alpine will succeed in transposing its know-how into future sports models from the French brand.
They would have done better to keep it.
A great mistake
After a 25-year career, he'd surely aspire to a CEO position, and at Stellantis there's not much left...
Given his talent they should have given him a real place, a waste of Stellantis air.
It's clear that he's talented, but apart from perhaps a position at Maserati... but Stellantis wanted a marketing man rather than an engineer to head the Trident. But I'll keep an eye on Alpine to see if we recognize his touch in future models.
We'll see how it turns out, but kudos to Alpine for blowing them away, and too bad for Stellantis.
At least he won't have a 3-cylinder puretoc in his future projects ......quoique alpine too is going all-electric 😡
Renault is already on the front line following a collective complaint from several customers, so we'll see if this doesn't put a strain on expenses. Alpine may take some time to move forward if that's the case.
A fine CV and a fine recruit for Alpine, a rare mythical brand in France.