Frankfurt am Main: German high-end carmaker Daimler said that it plans to replace long-serving chief executive Dieter Zetsche next year, setting up a Swedish successor to take the helm of the Mercedes-Benz parent company. Zetsche will “step down from his positions in the board of management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, effective at the end of the annual shareholders’ meeting” on May 22, 2019, the group said, adding that he will be replaced by fellow board member Ola Kallenius.
Colleagues plan to make the flamboyantly-moustachioed Zetsche — who has been in the post since 2006 — head of the group’s supervisory board from 2021. But he must wait out a two-year cooling-off period before taking on the non-executive job.
Zetsche will be followed in the chief executive’s chair by Kallenius, a Swedish manager who joined Daimler in 1993 and has been head of research and development for Mercedes-Benz cars since 2017.
“In Ola Kallenius, we are appointing a recognised, internationally experienced and successful Daimler executive,” current supervisory board chief Manfred Bischoff said in a statement. — AFP
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