As of 1 January 2015, Opel's Executive Chief Engineer of Light Commercial Vehicles and Alliance Programs, Charlie Klein (54) will take up the position of Vice President of Vehicle Engineering for Europe. Klein will be replacing Mike Ableson who is set to move back to the US in order to take up the role of Vice President of Global Product Planning and Program Management at Opel's parent company, General Motors.
In addition to the new role, Klein will take over Mike Ableson's position as a Member of the Board for Adam Opel AG and will report directly to Ken Kelzer, Vice President for Global Vehicle Components and Subsystems and also to Dr Karl-Thomas Neumann, GM Executive Vice President and Head of the Opel Group.
Commenting on the appointment, Dr Neumann said, "We welcome Charlie Klein to the Opel Group top management team. He has been in charge of successful alliance projects with Renault and PSA in recent years, and we believe he is the right person to lead the more than 6,000 engineers at the International Technical Development Center (ITDC) in Rüsselsheim. At the same time, I would like to thank Mike Ableson who put his stamp on the engineering work here in a relatively short time and played a significant role in Opel's product offensive."
Anything else?
Opel has also appointed Carsten Wreth (49) to the newly-created position of Vice President of Customer Experience Europe. Having previously worked with telecommunications giant Telefonica in its Global Services division, Wreth will report to Peter Kuespert, Vice President of Sales & Aftersales in the Opel Group.
"Carsten brings in 15 years of experience of putting the customer at the heart of everything the company does", said Kuespert, "He will play a pivotal role in making our organisation even more customer focused."