Dear Thierry: Our advice for Jaguar Land Rover's new CEO

Warmest congratulations on taking the Jaguar Land Rover job, and especially on keeping your candidacy out of the public eye while the long-winded Tata recruitment process played out. It’s remarkable that our own Financial Times, which prides itself on knowing what comes next, didn’t even mention you in its recent list of probables. Full marks for your discretion.

At Autocar, we very much look forward to your arrival. The UK car business is dominated by German and German-influenced managers – and has a great deal to thank them for – but it’ll be fascinating to see whether you bring a different management style, and how that plays out. The variety will be refreshing.

Although your career at Renault was rudely interrupted last year (we understand it was for political reasons rather than matters of competence), it’s clear your achievements are many and your international experience is great. In particular, your former life as a close associate of ‘le cost cutter’, Carlos Ghosn, looks appropriate. We imagine this might have been part of your appeal to your new bosses at Tata.

However, one thing we’ll be keen to hear is how you reckon managing a couple of old-established premium marques dovetails with what you’ve done in the mass car market and component supply businesses so far. For many of us, this will be question one, and it is on the presumption that you don’t yet know everything that we, as long-term reporters of Jaguar’s and Land Rover’s challenges, put forward this list of early priorities…

First things first

Most important, you must strongly signal – and keep signalling – an abiding admiration for what has been built. Times are hard but this is not a broken company. As the new voice, you will command a lot of attention and we hope you will use it. True, the losses are alarming (?422 million for the year to March, and much bigger reverses the previous year), but these are exceptional times and even JLR’s sternest critics know it.

Категория: Автотехника