Power List 100 2023 – Top 10

Autocar Business’s annual Power List 100 names the 100 most influential major movers and shakers in the automotive industry.

The Power List 100, sponsored by Keyloop, shows the importance of this industry globally: one that wields great power, but that power is constantly shifting.

The top 10 are ranked based on global reach and influence, spending power, share of voice, technological influence, future growth potential and market capitalisation.

The remaining 90 names on the list are grouped into categories, including executives from more traditional car makers to the rising powerhouses from China, the latest technology firms and mobility companies.

1 Luca de Meo, CEO, Renault

Luca de Meo’s improbable climb to the top of this chart is testament to the extraordinary turnaround he has achieved at the Renault Group. When he joined in 2020, the French company had fallen into one of the deepest financial holes ever faced by a global automotive company, after losing €8 billion the previous year.

The pandemic had abruptly turned off the cash tap and exposed all kinds of problems in a company still suffering from the dash-for-volume approach of its previous CEO but one, Carlos Ghosn. De Meo called on his years of experience gleaned at increasingly senior postings at Toyota, the Fiat Group and the Volkswagen Group, where he rose to lead Seat and Cupra, and went to work on repairing Renault. 

Under de Meo’s leadership, Renault scraped a profit in 2021, before doubling it to €2.6bn in 2022 on a margin of 5.6%. For a volume player like Renault, that’s healthy, but in the first half of this year, the company broke its all-time margin record of 7% with a 7.6% result on profits of €2.12bn. Profits at all car companies have been easier to come by post-pandemic as supply constraints allowed them to reduce discounting, but de Meo has had to negotiate a series of unique bear traps that might have undone a lesser executive.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he acted swiftly to dispose of Renault’s business in Russia, which included the painful decision to drop Lada just as it was coming good after a long turnaround.

De Meo has also taken a more pragmatic approach to the Alliance with Nissan, including defusing the shareholding imbalance that has long rankled with Renault’s Japanese partner. He ripped up Renault’s product plan on day one of the job after being shown too many low-margin small cars in the design studio and shifted the launch focus to bigger, more profitable segments to underpin the company while allowing the smaller cars to remain, both at Renault and Dacia.

Shrewd platform-sharing has reduced development costs by up to 40%, he has boasted.

Challenges remain. Splitting the company into divisions, including the electric-focused Ampere, will be a tough sell to investors, who will wonder what they gain from buying shares in a Renault division so strongly connected to the core. De Meo has also yet to replicate his proven marketing magic on expanding the Alpine premium brand with its attached problematic Formula 1 team.

De Meo’s competent demeanour, steely business approach, unrivalled networking ability and smartly applied experience has given Renault the ability to not just survive but also strongly compete in a fast-changing market.

=2 Oliver Blume, chairman, VW Group; CEO, Porsche

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume took over the running of the entire Volkswagen Group in September last year after his predecessor, Herbert Diess, was ousted, reportedly for failing to tackle myriad problems at the group’s Cariad software division. 

His appointment followed seven years at Porsche, a role he retains, and underlines the importance of this phenomenally profitable brand to the group. The promotion challenges Blume to repeat the success group-wide. 

Blume has shrunk the board, replaced the Cariad head and reorganised the divisions to hand them more business responsibility. China is a key concern among VW investors and Blume has shown boldness in propping up VW’s ailing position thereby forging partnerships with faster, more digital EV brands such as Xpeng. 

The company remains the world’s largest car maker on revenue and Blume’s balancing act to overhaul VW’s stuttering electric push after a strong start while smoothly running out its profitable combustion-engine models will either cement his glowing reputation or tarnish it for good.

=2 Carlos Tavares, CEO, Stellantis

Our 2020 winner is still displaying the same rigorous approach to controlling spending bloat at the sprawling 14-brand global company, most recently posting profits of €14.1bn over the first six months of the year on revenues over almost €100bn. Its 14.4% margin is well above anything a largely volume-brand company would have thought possible 10 years ago. 

Tavares joined PSA in 2013 and has been steadily assembling the manufacturing multi-brand scale he feels is needed to deliver costly innovations and electrification. But while he’s achieved platform scale, the brands are thriving with their own identities, and even problem cases such as Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia are being given their chance to shine. 

Tavares cut his teeth in the Renault Group and Nissan working under Carlos Ghosn, who went on to undermine his good work with a financially crippling growth-at- all-cost strategy before being toppled. Tavares has shown the discipline to avoid that and even his China exit strategy, which appeared at first to be weakness, now looks like foresight.

4 Euisun Chung, executive chair, Hyundai Motor Group

In 2020, Euisun Chung took over the reins of the Korean company founded by his family and has worked to continue the modernisation he has been pushing through since joining in 1999.

Chung, who studied in San Francisco, has shown a willingness to learn from others,even if it means taking risks when it comes to partnerships, such as investing in companies like robotic specialists Boston Dynamics, Rimac and self-driving partnership Motional. 

He was also the driving force behind the establishment of the successful Genesis premium brand. But it’s in EVs that Hyundai under Chung has perhaps made the biggest waves. Jumping straight to newer technology such as the 800V battery set-up while taking a risk on edgy designs such as the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Kia EV6 is the mark of a company committed to not just making the electric transition but owning it as well.

5 Wang Chuanfu, chairman, CEO, BYD

China’s BYD is in the position Toyota occupied in the early 1980s, looking to substantially grow its healthy exports after rising to top its domestic car market. The success of the company, whose initials stand for Build Your Dreams, is down to the tenacity of its CEO, chairman and founder, Wang Chuanfu. 

Wang was orphaned young and grew up poor, but parlayed a chemical degree into a business start-up that first made its name as China’s foremost mobile phone battery company. He turned his attention to cars and in 1998 won investment from hard-nosed US financier Warren Buffett.

Wang’s insistence that BYD develop pretty much all the parts for its cars in-house has given it an edge over rivals, but nowhere more

so than in batteries. Its development of cheaper lithium-iron-phosphate cells has led to the roll-out of EVs priced on par with combustion-engine vehicles in China. That’s paid off. In the first seven months of this year, BYD took a 37% share in China’s new-energy market, which includes EVs and plug-in hybrids, and overtook VW to become the number-one brand outright.

6 Koji Sato, president, CEO, Toyota

Koji Sato took over from Toyota family scion Akio Toyoda as CEO in April and derives his power from overseeing what is still the world’s largest car maker by volume. Sato started at the company in 1992 and went on to oversee Lexus as well as lead Toyota’s Gazoo racing arm. 

His remit now is to overhaul Toyota into the digital, electric era with all the upheaval that implies for an automotive powerhouse unused to deviating from long- planned industrial strategies. Toyota’s current automotive leadership is under threat globally from Chinese car makers, with their industrial advantage on batteries. 

Sato has to negotiate a path between focusing on its long-held strategies for a zero-emission future, including hydrogen and solid-state batteries, and partnering battery specialists like BYD for medium-term success. It’s hard to imagine Toyota giving up leadership that quickly and Sato’s race-honed wiliness will be key to it maintaining its global pole position.

7 Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla

Elon Musk’s foray into Twitter ownership has not dented the abilities of Tesla to continue rewriting the automotive rulebook. His EV brand built almost a million cars in the first half of the year – a figure that came close to Tesla’s entire 2021 output – largely from just two models, and the Model Y was Europe’s best-selling car outright. 

Musk’s refusal to follow the automotive establishment has resulted in Tesla learning the immutable rules the hard way but also finding new paths that his once dismissive rivals are now scrabbling to follow. There are plenty of questions ahead for the pioneer but he remains a key power figure as Tesla continues to lead the conversation on the switch to a digital and electric future, at least outside China.

8 Oliver Zipse, chairman, BMW

After being appointed to the top job in 2019, Oliver Zipse helped grow revenues to €142bn in 2022, up from €104bn in 2019, despite selling fewer cars (2.40m versus 2.54m). 

He has been aided by the supplier squeeze that helped cut discounts, but the former production chief has been smart about balancing the expansion of EVs with continued production of profitable combustion models, often side by side in the same factories. His mettle will be tested by the launch of the Neue Klasse electric models from 2025 that will be built on a dedicated platform in Europe, Mexico and China.  

BMW has promised class-leading performance, price and technology as it aims to keep profits flowing in key global regions. Profit margins last year hit an impressive 16.5% before tax of €23.5bn and investors will be anxious BMW remains as profitable as Neue Klasse models start to squeeze out combustion ones.

9 Ola Källenius, chairman, Mercedes-Benz Group

The Swedish-born chairman of Mercedes-Benz continues to make an impact after taking the helm in 2019, most recently impressing investors after the company beat earnings forecasts in the second quarter of 2023 with profits of €5bn and predicted it would match 2022’s €20bn profit. 

Källenius has been one of the most vocal advocates of the value-over-volume strategy to limit sales, increase prices and focus on high-margin, high-price models, a strategy that is paying off handsomely. 

On the tech side, he pushed the firm to secure the first accreditation from the Germany authorities to run the S-Class and EQS hands-free in certain scenarios and that breakthrough has now been extended to California. 

Mercedes has also shown braveness in rolling out the direct sales ‘agency’ model globally. To date, the company’s deft continuation of its strong position in China has reaped dividends as more volume global brands struggle against local rivals. 

Mercedes’ luxury position there has so far protected it from the EV-led price wars in the lower categories. However, the fast-paced move up the luxury ladder by nascent Chinese premium brands is one of Källenius’s headaches to solve.

10 Li Shufu, chairman, Geely

The Chinese company started by Li Shufu first made refrigerators before moving to motorbikes and only built its first car in 1997. Since then, it has acquired brands as diverse as Volvo, LEVC, Proton and Lotus while taking a near 10% stake in Mercedes-Benz and 50% in Smart. Geely has also been stalking Aston Martin and from May captured a 17% stake in the company along with a seat on the board. 

Li’s ambition also extends to in-house brands and the premium Zeekr division this year will expand into Europe to give Geely another angle of attack on the incumbents. 

Li has been dubbed the Henry Ford of China for his appetite for growth, but even Henry would boggle at the complicated corporate structures built to divide up ownership of the various brands and juggle finances in the teeth of margin-destroying price wars in China. 

The affable poem-quoting CEO inspires an almost cult-like following among his employees, but companies are encouraged to work autonomously rather than to a corporate diktat, allowing them to move quickly.

How are the 100 names in Autocar’s Power List chosen?

The Power List ranks the world’s 100 most influential automotive heads, based on the following criteria: global reach and influence, spending power, share of voice, technological influence, future growth potential and market capitalisation. 

The top 10 are ranked and the remaining 90 names on the list are grouped into categories, including executives from more traditional car makers to the rising powerhouses from China and the latest technology and mobility companies. 

These names were chosen by the editors of Autocar Business, the B2B product from the publisher of Autocar, designed to bring industry readers even closer to the inner workings and key players of the global automotive industry.

The full list is now available to download here.