Quick Facts
GeminiBiography
Luca de Meo (Milan, June 13, 1967) was the President of SEAT from November 2015to January 2020.Born in Milan (Italy) in 1967, Luca de Meo received a degree in Business Administration from the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan.
In his thesis, he examined business ethics and it was the first dissertation on this subject in Italy. In 2017, he was named Bocconi Alumnus of the Year, for representing the University values of professionalism, initiative, integrity, responsibility and opennes to pluralism.
De Meo has more than twenty-five years of experience in the automotive sector. He began his career at Renault, prior to joining Toyota Europe, followed by the Fiat Group, where he was Head of Business Units Lancia, Fiat and Alfa Romeo; CEO of Abarth, and Chief Marketing Officer of the Fiat Group. During his time as Fiat, he was considered a protege of Sergio Marchionne, carrying a significant responsibility over the launch of the new Fiat 500, however, Marchionne was disappointed at his results while he was leading Alfa Romeo.
De Meo joined the Volkswagen Group in 2009, as marketing director of the brand of Volkswagen and of the Volkswagen Group, prior to taking up the position of Board of Management member for sales and marketing at Audi AG. Luca de Meo was named “commendatore” by the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, and Harvard University dedicated a case study to him in 2013, for his work in the Volkswagen Group as marketing director. From July 2020, he will be the CEO of Renault, leaving Renault without a CEO for another five months due to a non-compete clause with Volkswagen Group.
He speaks five languages (Italian, English, French, German and Spanish), was a teaching fellow at SDA Bocconi School of Management, and is the author of the book Da 0 a 500, Storie vissute, idee e consigli da uno dei manager più dinamici della nuova generazione.
His personality has been described as collegial, humorous and culturally adaptive. His competences in leadership are said to be in marketing, product planning, having attention to detail and avoiding conflict, while he lacks an engineering background.
External Links
