Paris (Reuters) -Renault announced on Wednesday the appointment of its director of purchasing and partnerships François Provost as new managing director to succeed Luca de Meo, who left to take the lead of the Luxury Kering group.
This appointment for four years will be effective on Thursday, July 31, said the French car manufacturer in a press release.
“François Provost has the qualities required to continue and accelerate the transformation of Renault Group, to ensure the continuity of its development, especially internationally and in its partnerships, to capitalize on its strategic agility,” the group said in a press release.
“With its expertise and its knowledge of the company, we will be able to complete the implementation of our strategic plan, finalize the terms of the following and ensure its implementation successfully,” added Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of the Board of Directors of Renault, quoted in the press release.
Little known to the general public, 57 years old, François Provost worked closely with his predecessor and notably piloted the Renault transformation plan presented by Luca de Meo during the Market Day capital in November 2022.
Appointed Director of International Development and Partnerships in 2020, then also Director of Public Affairs in 2021, this affable man will be responsible for perpetuating the recovery initiated by his predecessor.
Renault, which will publish its results of the first half of it on Thursday, announced that it would accuse a net loss estimated at 9.5 billion euros on its participation in Nissan at the end of June after having changed the way in which he had been counting for decades the actions held in his Japanese partner.
The group had appointed mid-July its financial director Duncan Minto as an acting managing director and also lowered its annual forecasts, citing a deterioration in market dynamics.
A packed vacuum in less than two months
The mid-June announcement of the departure of Luca de Meo, craftsman of Renault’s transformation, after only one year of his new mandate, left a void while the group was preparing its new strategic plan, “Futurama”, whose presentation was scheduled for November.
This void will have been filled in less than two months. In mid-July, Renault entrusted the interim of the general management to its financial director Duncan Minto, then chose two weeks later its new director general.
Still focused on partnerships and an acceleration outside Europe, in order to reduce Renault’s dependence to the continent, the new plan aims to register the recovery made by the former director general while the challenges linked to the CO2 objectives and the competition from Chinese brands are pounding in Europe.
“The Board of Directors probably sought this experience and this continuity in the strategy,” comments Michaël Foundoukilis, analyst at Oddo.
“One of the main pillars of the outgoing CEO’s Futurama strategy was to strengthen partnerships and rely more on it,” added Rella Suskin, analyst at Morningstar. “Given its relative lack of scale, Renault cannot compete alone with the much larger R&D budgets of Volkswagen and Stellantis for example.”
Ally while remaining independent
Under the leadership of Luca de Meo, and with the help of François Provost, Renault has already multiplied partnerships, as with Google in the infotainment, with Geely in Korea and through the Entity of Petrol and Horse Hybrids, or with Volvo Group in electric vans.
This strategy has enabled the group to stay in the race for electrification and software, which require massive investments, but while arousing concern about a loss of home know-how and on Renault’s term capacity to remain independent.
The partnership with Geely and the growing importance of Chinese engineering to speed up programs like Twingo feed the same questions.
“This strategy questions the new director’s ability to preserve Renault’s industrial sovereignty and to protect employment in France over the long term,” the CGT union reacted in a statement published after the announcement of the appointment of François Provost.
Michaël Foundokoudis of Oddo also notes that François Provost seems less a product specialist than Luca de Meo, who never hid his passion for cars until writing last year a “Dictionary in love with the automobile”, or that Denis Le Vot, another candidate for the position.
A source close to the file had indicated on Tuesday that Renault administrators were still to decide between François Provost and the boss of the successful “Low Cost” brand Dacia, the scenario of an internal recruitment being privileged in the final stretch of the process.
In the event of an external choice, analysts cited the name of Maxime Picat, pillar of PSA and former world purchasing director of Stellantis.
See also:
Portrait-François Provost, discreet pilot of Renault’s transformation
Frame them for the challenges that await the new Renault CEO
(Gilles Guillaume report, with Benjamin Mallet, edited by Kate Entringer and Augustin Turpin)
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