Design chief Schreyer new Kia president

Kia Motors Corporation has promoted its Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer, to president of the company. It marks the first time a non-Korean has been appointed to the position.

The German car designer has previously stated his desire to stay with Kia and the company is clearly very keen to retain the talented designer who has helped elevate the company's reputation via modern car designs. Mr Schreyer's new title is President & CDO (Chief Design Officer), which will allow him to continue to oversee car design at the company, having stamped his signature on every vehicle in the Kia range -- except the Carnival people mover.

An all-new Kia Carnival is expected to break cover by late 2013, a vehicle that Mr Schreyer says will make people movers "cool".

Kia has also confirmed it will release its first performance vehicles this year, the cee'd GT and pro_cee'd GT small cars. At this stage the cee'd models are not offered in Australia.

As President & CDO, Peter Schreyer is one of three president-level executives in the management board, and joins Sam-Ung Lee, President in charge of domestic operations, domestic production and labor issues, and lastly Byung-Mo Ahn, Group President and CEO of Kia Motors America and Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia.

Hank Lee sits above all three, as overriding Kia President.

Kia enlisted Mr Schreyer in 2006, after his tenure at the Volkswagen group and the Bavarian-born designer is widely acknowledged as being a key player in Kia's transformation from a cheap and cheerful car maker to a serious player in mainstream global car markets.

Aged 59, Schreyer's portfolio includes contributions to vehicles such as the original Audi TT and Volkswagen Passat. In 1980 he began working for Audi and stayed with the company for more than decade, then moved to Volkswagen until 2006 when he took up the role of chief designer at Kia.

Having presided over the design of vehicles such as Sportage, Optima, Rio, Cerato, and overseas models such as cee'd, Quoris and Picanto, Mr Schreyer's job was to regularly present his team's designs to Kia's top brass, and convince them of their merits. His new role as president has the potential to streamline both this process and the time between design and reality.

Kevin Hepworth, Kia Australia's National Public Relations Manager, told motoring.com.au Mr Schreyer's promotion was a boon for the company: "Peter's appointment to the Presidency role will benefit all Kia markets as he will continue to drive the design language of the brand and be in a position to shepherd his plans more closely."

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