Jaguar Land Rover’s global strategy director Adrian Hallmark has been appointed chairman and CEO of Bentley, replacing Wolfgang Dürheimer.
Dürheimer, 59, is retiring after his second stint in charge of the British firm, one of three roles he has held within the Volkswagen Group. Dürheimer will retain a role advising the VW Group on its motorsport projects.
Opinion: How Dürheimer helped fuel Bentley's growth
Hallmark, 55, was previously Bentley’s board member for sales, marketing and PR before moving to JLR. He has also worked for Porsche, Volkswagen and Saab. Hallmark will start his new role on 1 February 2018. Hallmark is understood to have left JLR on Thursday 5 October.
During Dürheimer’s time at Bentley, he has pushed the growth of the brand, including the launch of the Bentley Bentayga SUV and a return to racing with the Continental GT3.
VW Group boss Matthias Müller said: “Wolfgang Dürheimer has had an outstanding career and has launched some of the most important cars the group has ever created.”
Bentley has also made three further appointments to its board. Werner Tietz moves over from Porsche to head up engineering, succeeding Rolf Frech. Chris Craft, Porsche GB’s managing director, will replace Andreas Offermann as sales and marketing chief. Astrid Fontaine, previously at Porsche North America, will head up people, digitisation and IT. Those appointments will take effect on 1 January 2018.
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Opinion: How Dürheimer helped fuel Bentley's growth
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Interesting
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Growth of the Brand?
As I recall, the big decisions regarding product were made while he was either at Audi or between appointments. The Bentayga was approved and the decision to align the New Continental with the Porsche Panamera were made in his absence.
Despite all the loud noise, what happened to the Mulsanne Convertible, Exp10 Speed 6 and Exp12 Speed6e?
A great career but let’s not make it something it wasn’t
Growth of the Brand?
Too right. But, can I ask? Was it under Durheimer's leadership that the stained glass Battle of Britain Memorial Window by the main staircase, that was hidden behind the hessian screens since 1998, ended up in as a thousand shards of glass in a skip, when they refurbished the reception area?
We saved the glass
i can answer your question, as the Bentley project manager for the reception refurbishment, the window was split into three panes of glass, the outer two were plain, but the central one was etched with a rolls Royce logo and we went to great care to remove it whole and have it in storage
I am afraid it was not a copy of the Battle of Britain one that was installed in the Derby factory.
We also photographed it before it was removed incase broke
Liar
Liar. Rolls-Royce logo indeed. If you had seen it you would remember the eagle, the pilot and the propeller. It was one of three - the other was at Nightingale Road, Derby and the other in Westminster Cathedral. As well as Liar, the words Vandal and Arsehole spring to mind.
This is great news for Bentley
In an industry muddied by platform sharing and brand diluation Hallmark seems to know what he's doing - first at Bentley then at Jaguar and, hopefully, once again at Bentley. An external appointment who really understand the brand is what they need at Crewe not another German careerist engineer facing retirement. Hopefully he'll also be able to make Bentayga 2 a little less hard to look at.