Dany Bahar — new Lotus CEO
What we scooped for you yesterday is now official. Dany Bahar will assume control of Lotus as the new Chief Executive Officer beginning October 1st.
Follow the jump for the official press release and more biographical information.
PRESS RELEASE
Dany Bahar joins Lotus as Chief Executive Officer
Dany T. Bahar has been appointed as the new CEO of Group Lotus effective 1st October 2009, replacing Michael J. Kimberley, who retired in July.
Prior to this appointment, Dany Bahar was Senior Vice President, Commercial & Brand for Ferrari SpA where he was responsible for worldwide road car sales and after sales business, overall road car and F1 marketing activities, licensing, and merchandising business.
Before joining Ferrari SpA, Dany Bahar was the Head of Corporate Projects Business in Red Bull GmbH. He was responsible for the overall corporate project business development, with emphasis on diversifying the business such as setting up their F1 strategy with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso and the US based Nascar Team operations, acquiring football clubs in Salzburg, New York and Ghana for commercial purposes.
On his appointment, Dany Bahar said,
I am looking forward to taking on the challenges as CEO of this legendary and iconic company with a peerless motorsport history. Lotus has a worldwide reputation for innovative engineering and superb sportscars that lead the world in efficiency, design and dynamics. With the recent launch of the award-winning Evora, there is proof that Lotus is better placed than many to capitalise on the rapidly changing automotive market. I can’t wait to get my plans underway in October.
In welcoming Dany Bahar, Dato’ Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh, the Chairman of Lotus Group, stated
With Dany’s track record in motorsports and Ferrari, we strongly believe that we have found the right CEO to enhance the Lotus image, brand and reputation as a world class sportscar and engineering company. With a strong management team already in place, we are confident this objective can be attained.
Dany Bahar, a Swiss National, holds an MBA and is married with two children.
[ENDS] [Source: Lotus]
More biographical information from our earlier article:
Born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1971, Bahar grew up in Switzerland after his family left Turkey while he was still very young. Following a brief period working in sports marketing in Rome, Bahar next worked in finance circles in Liechtenstein where he met Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz. Bahar became a leading figure of the beverage company and was known as Mateschitz’s ‘right hand man’.
At Red Bull, Bahar transformed the company’s role from just sponsoring sports teams to owning those sports teams outright. This empowered Red Bull with long-term investment decisions of other brands.
Bahar established the Red Bull Racing F1 team after he took over the remains of Jaguar Racing from Ford in 2004. This was not the start of Red Bull’s involvement in motorsport however, which had previously included a long-term partnership with the Sauber F1 team.
Bahar then added a second F1 team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, from the remains of Minardi. Toyota’s entry into NASCAR under Red Bull was also organized by Bahar.
Bahar moved from Red Bull to Ferrari in 2007.
