HYUNDAI

Legendary German design Peter Schreyer named Korean brand ambassador

Hyundai Motor Group announced that Peter Schreyer, President and Director of Design Management, has been named Executive Design Advisor and Brand Ambassador for the corporation.

With this new position, the visionary designer will extend his impressive 16-year career at the Group, which he joined in 2006.

“I would like to thank Executive Chairman Chung who called and welcomed me to South Korea in 2006. Being in charge of an open project and being able to imprint my design philosophy first on KIA, and later on Hyundai and Genesis, it's a real honor. Being a car designer has always been a dream job for me and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to do so. I look forward to continuing to help shape the design of the Hyundai Motor Group in my role as an advisor and as an ambassador for their brands,” said Peter Schreyer.

Born in 1953 in Bad Reichenhall (Germany), Schreyer showed his interest in art from an early age. He received his professional training at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich and at the renowned Royal College of Art in London, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2007. Before joining KIA, he was responsible for the design of pioneering models such as the Audi TT , the VW New Beetle and the VW Golf IV at Audi and the Volkswagen Group, where he held various positions for over 25 years.

In 2006, Schreyer received a call with an offer to join KIA Motors Corporation. Attracted by the extraordinary opportunity to create a new design direction from scratch, he accepted and became KIA's Chief Design Officer. Peter Schreyer was the first person to bring a strong and characteristic design direction to the brand.

Converted President and Chief Design Officer of Hyundai Motor Group in 2013, Schreyer's unique approach to design has helped make Hyundai and KIA very attractive brands. The development of its inspirational philosophy shaped its transformation and, in addition, led to the development of Genesis as the Group's luxury car brand. For all brands he has developed his own unique design philosophies and identities. One of the most significant elements was KIA's distinctive and globally recognized 'Tiger Nose'. Some of Schreyer's most notable design achievements in the Group have been the KIA Optima, Soul and Stinger, as well as Hyundai's SUV range from the Kona to Santa Fe and the hydrogen-powered NEXO. He also developed the so characteristic cascading grille that Hyundai identifies.

Schreyer also played a profound role in the Group's corporate culture revolution, driven by his belief that the best results are produced through equal collaboration rather than rigid hierarchies. Introduced a workflow based on a philosophy inspired by one of Schreyer's great passions - jazz and rock - where a group of people can bring different skills to the table with a shared understanding of what they want to achieve, improvising and exchanging in quest to create something new and beautiful.

Over the course of his career, Peter Schreyer has united his country's automotive design heritage with the myriad opportunities offered by the immense change that has taken place in South Korea - often dubbed 'The Korean Wave' - which has seen its cultural exports shatter around the world and laid the foundations for the country's stratospheric growth, both economically and in terms of its attractiveness. Schreyer's projects demonstrated that the combination of two very different design cultures can be greater than the sum of its parts and create something truly unique, contributing to capturing the attention and imagination of the entire world.

Autonews