The Argentine Carlos Zarlenga will replace Mark Stewart at the helm of the automaker from February 1st Stellantis For North America.
Zarlenga, current president of Stellantis in Mexico, will assume the position of Director of Operations for United States, Mexico and Canada of the car company born from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot. It will have its headquarters in the American city of Detroit.
This 49-year-old economist, graduated from the University of Belgrano, was president of General Motors of Argentina and South America between 2015 and 2021. In 2016 Zarlenga promoted an aggressive supply policy which led its brand to oust Volkswagen from leadership in the domestic market.
In the industrial field Zarlenga promoted the investment of 300 million dollars at the General Motors plant in Rosario to start production of the model Locator. This investment, with many delays due to the post-2019 crisis and the pandemic, was completed at the end of 2022.
By then, Zarlenga had already left General Motors, where he served for two years as president for South America, based in Sao Paulo.
He led his own business project for a short time, in collaboration with his former colleague at General Motors of North America, Barry Engle, with whom he created the investment fund Qell LATAM Partnerwhich he presented at the end of 2021.
A few months later, in August 2022, Zarlenga was recruited to the United States by Mark Stewart, still Stellantis’ COO of North America, to lead the automaker’s operations in Mexico. Now, in two weeks, Zarlenga will occupy Stewart’s office.
The appointment was announced on Tuesday from Amsterdam and was led by Stellantis CEO, Carlo Tavares. “Carlos Zarlenga is the best leader in our talent pool to replace Mark Stewart and drive the change in our business model towards electrification in the region,” the statement read.
Stellantis was born three years ago, the result of the merger of two automotive companies which in turn also had their own concentration processes. The result is an umbrella of automotive brands that brings together today Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep®, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, Vauxhall, Free2move and Leasys.
Source: Clarin
