By Giulio Piovaccari and Gilles Guillaume

Milan/Paris (Reuters) – Italian Antonio Filosa, current patron of Stellantis activities, in North America, was appointed Wednesday to succeed Carlos Tavares at the head of the automaker born from the merger between PSA and FCA, whose recovery he will have to drive after a dark year.

His appointment to the post of director general, decided unanimously by the board of directors, will be effective on June 23, when Antonio Filosa will also unveil the new management team around him, the group announced in a press release.

“This appointment welcomes Antonio Filosa’s journey: 25 years of success in the automotive industry, experiences at all levels and in various regions, of unrivaled knowledge of the company and recognized leadership,” he added.

See you almost 52 years old, the new managing director will have a heavy task of straightening the sales and profitability of the manufacturer in North America and Europe, in an environment made even more difficult by the chaotic trade war launched by US President Donald Trump.

His priority will therefore go to the United States, for a long time the most profitable region of Stellantis. He will also have to rationalize the important portfolio of 14 brands in the group, a legacy of the 2021 merger having given birth to a group at the origins that are both French, Italian and American, and which some analysts believe that it should be reduced.

In a press release, the CFDT, the fourth group’s union union in France, asked for “a balanced distribution of activities on the various geographic plates not relegating France and Europe to the background.”

The choice of internal

Antonio Filosa has been deputy managing director for North America since October, after the group has issued a spectacular “warning profit” due in particular to swelling of its stocks in the United States.

Carlos Tavares, one of the craftsmen of the creation of Stellantis, brutally resigned at the end of last year in the face of growing disagreements that appeared with the reference shareholders on his methods to redress the group’s financial and operational situation.

The manufacturer underwent a 70% drop in net profit and lost six billion euros in liquidity last year.

While he had exceeded 27 euros in early 2024, the course of his action lost more than two thirds of his value over the following 12 months.

In the first exchanges, the title increased by 0.7% on the Milan Stock Exchange before leaving slightly.

“The market may be a little disappointed with the appointment of an internal candidate as a new managing director after more than six months of research,” said Andrea Balloni, analyst at MediBanca.

According to sources, the board of directors has heard two internal candidates – Antonio Filosa and the French Maxime Picat – as well as three external candidates.

In a press release, the Peugeot family, the second shareholder of the group behind the family holding company of Agnelli, Exor, explained the internal choice by stressing in Antonio Filosa “its fine knowledge of the field realities and its intimate understanding of the industrial culture of Stellantis (…), as many assets to register Stellantis in a new operational trajectory.”

The future director general will also have to appease relations with the dealers, unions and various governments of which Stellantis is an interlocutor, after these have been strongly stretched in the last months of the presence of Carlos Tavares at the head of the group.

In a statement, the CFE-CGC, the main union of the manufacturer in France, said to wait for the new director general that he “broke with authoritarian management and focused on reducing the Tavare era costs” and that he revives the group’s industrial dynamics.

“The new CEO will have to straighten sales, especially in Europe and North America, and restore the brand’s brand image by quality scandals,” he added, in reference to the problems of Puretech petrol engines and Takata airbags.

Antonio Filosa, pure FCA product, was in competition for the position with in particular Maxime Picat, director of purchasing of the group, who for his part made his entire career within PSA until the creation of Stellantis in January 2021.

Despite his Italian nationality and his past at Fiat, Antonio Filosa has almost never worked in Italy, displaying the international profile sought by the board of directors to manage a manufacturer that has become a multinational.

(Giulio Piovaccari report in Milan and Gilles Guillaume in Paris, Bertrand Boucey, edited by Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Kate Entringer)

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