Sergio Cravero appointed to head Alfa Romeo

Image via WikipediaSergio Cravero has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Alfa Romeo Automobiles, where he served as head of marketing prior to today’s appointment. Mr. Cravero, 48, was born in Turin and holds a degree in mechanical engineering. He joined Fiat Group Automobiles in 1986 and has held various positions of growing responsibility in the technical, commercial and marketing areas.

Following this new appointment, responsibility for individual brands is as follows:

· Fiat: Lorenzo Sistino,

· Lancia: Olivier François,

· Alfa Romeo: Sergio Cravero,

· Fiat Professional: Lorenzo Sistino.

· Abarth: Harald Wester, who will continue in his role as Chief Technical Officer for Fiat Group and Chief Executive Officer of Maserati.

In addition, to enhance the effectiveness of Fiat Group Automobiles and further strengthen synergies within the company, four new transversal functions are being created.

The new functions are:

· Sales, assigned to Lorenzo Sistino, who will be responsible for coordinating commercial activities for the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands. This new function will have responsibility for all markets.

· Brand Marketing Communication, assigned to Olivier François, who will be responsible for coordinating above-the-line and below-the-line communication activities for all brands.

· Product Portfolio Planning & Automotive Institutional Relations, assigned to Daniele Chiari, who will be responsible for planning for passenger vehicles and powertrain and for managing institutional relations for the Sector.

· Product Concept, assigned to Sergio Cravero, who will be responsible for coordinating product development of individual models and determining product initiatives for the Fiat, Lancia and Alfa Romeo brands.

Sergio Cravero, 48, was born in Turin. He graduated in mechanical engineering at Turin Politecnico and has a Masters in Business Administration from Milan Politecnico.

He joined Fiat Group Automobiles in 1986, in the Commercial division, where he worked as Product Manager and then Zone Manager for the Fiat brand. In 1991, he moved to the Product division where he was responsible for development of the Barchetta spider and, subsequently, for all Fiat and Lancia brand B segment models. In 1999, he returned to the Commercial area as Brand Manager for Alfa Romeo, where he was involved in development of the 147, awarded “2001 Car of the Year”. In 2002, he took over responsibility for the E development platform for the Fiat and Lancia brands. Since 2005, he has been head of marketing for Alfa Romeo.