Lotus receive a brand new company CEO

The new Chief Executive Officer of Group Lotus plc has been named and it is Jean-Marc Gales. The parent company of Lotus Proton recently announced that the Luxembourg born Gales had been appointed the new CEO.

Jean-Marc Gales is a graduate from the Imperial College in London and previously had a number of senior positions in automotive companies, such as the European Association of Automotive Suppliers CEO and a lobbyist for Parliament in Europe, also helping to determine the Industry Research & Innovation Strategy and Roadmap for 2025.

Gales was also the President of Peugeot/Citroen between 2009 and 2010, when the company reintroduced the DS brand and delivered record sales.

A gloomy past for Lotus

There were rumors in 2012 that the Lotus company could go into administration, following plans to introduce five brand new road cars over the same amount of years, none of which have ever actually been put on the road. It is likely that one of Gales first tasks will be to increase road car division sales. Lotus have never been famous for it's large sales volumes, though has seen sales slide since 2003 at 964 to 256 in 2013. It will be quite a tough task for Gales, since Lotus has allegedly not made a profit since it was acquired in 1996 by Proton.

The future for Lotus and their new CEO

The company bosses are hoping though that Lotus can pull through these tough times for them in the new and used markets and could potentially see a huge rise in sales with some new models, not just here in the UK but across other parts of the world too. Potentially also rival the likes of other sports car companies such as Mazda and Honda.

In arrangement of the challenges Mr Gales faces, he will also be responsible for looking after the very highly respected subsidiary, Lotus Engineering's fortunes, whose operations of consultancy involve development projects and engineering for a number of vehicle manufacturers, along with Lotus's Motorsport division.