AUTONEWS

Stellantis appoints a homegrown executive to replace Carlos Tavares

The man who will continue to lead the giant Stellantis will be Antonio Filosa, who will take over as CEO on June 23, a position previously held by Portuguese manager Carlos Tavares, who left the Franco-Italian-American group at the end of 2024, after four years in charge. 

It is worth remembering that Tavares has been at the helm of PSA since 2014, a French group led by Peugeot that gave rise to Stellantis when it merged with the Italians from FCA (which already combined the brands of the Italian group Fiat with those of the North American group Chrysler).

More than a change in leadership, everything indicates that Filosa's entry also reflects a shift in the power needle, which after favouring the French Peugeot family — who initially held equal power with the Italian Agnelli family within Stellantis — now seems to favour the Italians, who have since become the group's largest shareholder, holding 15.5% of the capital (through their Exor fund), compared to 7.74% for the French family, with the third largest shareholder being Bpifrance (6.65%), the French public investment bank that invested in the then PSA during the crisis. Stellantis now has a chairman (John Elkann is the grandson of Agnelli, the founder of Fiat) and a CEO with strong ties to the Italians.

Antonio Filosa is an Italian from Naples, trained in engineering and whose career took off in 1999 at Fiat. He followed an international career always linked to the Italian group, which led him to lead FCA in South America, where he served as operations director, a position he held after joining Stellantis, until he became CEO of Jeep, another brand that belonged to the FCA universe, in 2023.

According to the group, Filosa has a more collaborative management style, unlike Tavares' more decisive and rigorous character. It remains to be seen what results this strategy and the change in personality of the person in charge will yield, in the hope that the greater proximity to the former FCA brands will lead the new CEO to dispel the dark clouds that have been hanging over some Italian brands, such as Maserati, in Tavares' recent time.

In his first interview six months after leaving his position as CEO of Stellantis, to the Bloomberg news agency, Carlos Tavares stated that the appointment of Antonio Filosa as his successor was a logical choice: “I hope he has the due support of the Board. So, we will see”.

Tavares' statement coincides with part of the motivation for his departure: for months he had been at odds with the Board because he believed it was necessary to cut costs. His position caused discomfort among Board members, dealers and unions.

After his departure, Tavares stated that he has nothing against anyone at the company: “Not even against those who made my life difficult when I was CEO of Stellantis”.

Autonews