JLR has officially appointed Adrian Mardell as CEO.
Mr. Mardell has served in this role on an interim basis since November 16, 2022, having previously served as the company’s chief financial officer and a member of the company’s board of directors for three years.
Richard Molyneux has also been appointed Chief Financial Officer, having held the position provisionally since 12 December; he previously served as chief financial officer for the British-owned Indian automaker for six years.
“I have had the tremendous privilege of leading JLR for the past eight months and I am proud to be appointed CEO of this amazing business that has shaped me for the past 32 years,” said Mr. Mardell.
“We have the right vision and people to execute on our Reinventing strategy and I am honored to lead JLR on the journey ahead.”
JLR, formerly known as Jaguar Land Rover, announced earlier this year that it will move away from its two historic namesake brands in favor of a “Home of Brands” approach, whereby it will launch vehicles under Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar brands.
Mr. Mardell took over the top position at JLR after former CEO Thierry Bollore abruptly left the company after only two yearsquote “personal reasons”.
Although Mr. Bollore officially left the company on December 31, he has resigned as CEO as of the date of the announcement.
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Former CEO Thierry Bollore
Mr Bollore became chief executive officer of Jaguar Land Rover in September 2020 and in early 2021 he announced the Reimagine business plan.
As part of his plan to turn the tide, he killed the next generation. JaguarXJ only a few months left to launch on the same MLA platform as Range Roverand make Jaguar a premium brand for electric vehicles only from 2025, when it begins to compete with Bentley instead of BMW.
“Reimagine means being one step ahead of compliance. The current MLA program won’t do that for us,” then-CFO Mardell said of XJ’s cancellation.
“We should have caught up with this compliance and that’s still not good enough in this industry today.
“[The XJ] won’t stay ahead of the technology curve. It won’t have the modern luxury, the futuristic vision of Jaguar, the deadly aspiration we need for the brand to function.
“That’s why brands worked 30, 40 years ago. We have to capture that for this to actually generate cash and positive EBIT. So we had to make a difficult decision.”
A year later, Bollore revealed the company had decided to develop its own EV-only architecture, codenamed Panthera, in partnership with supplier Magna so that the next-generation Jaguar would have “unique” proportions.
