Eight months after he took over on an interim basis from resigning JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré, the board has appointed Adrian Mardell as long-term CEO of the company, initially contracted for a three-year term.
Eight months after he took over on an interim basis from resigning JLR CEO Thierry Bolloré, the board has appointed Adrian Mardell as long-term CEO of the company, initially contracted for a three-year term.
Mardell is a long time veteran of Jaguar and Land Rover, working for one company, the other, or their combined entity since 1990. Most of his roles have been on the financial side, and he came into the Interim CEO role out of being JLR’s Chief Financial Officer.
He took over when Bolloré departed somewhat suddenly last fall for "personal reasons," which some in the automotive media took to be a reflection of his handling of the semiconductor and supply chain crises. Since then, Mardell negotiated a massive battery factory deal with the British government, oversaw the transition to the House of Brands marketing strategy, and began the transition of Jaguar to an all-EV brand. He now looks forward to completing the reinvention of Jaguar, further building the Land Rover brands, and negotiating electrification on a global scale.
Simultaneously, as Mardell will not be returning to the CFO role, interim CFO Richard Molyneux has also been made permanent. His work history involves many years with General Motors' former European operations, and then came to JLR from McLaren. He had been with JLR for six years as Finance Director of Operations before taking on the CFO role.
Mardell is only the third CEO of JLR during the Tata era (which began in 2008), but also the third in three years. After many years of leadership from Sir Ralf Speth, who crafted an independent corporation out of what was two divisions of Ford Motor Company's larger machine, Bolloré took over in 2020.
When he's not running Britain's largest automaker, according to JLR's official biography, Mardell spends time with his wife and five daughters, follows National Hunt racing ("jumps" racing), and is a huge fan of American football and the Detroit Lions, which may have been something he picked up during Jaguar and Land Rover's Ford era.
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