Kia Motors promoted chief designer Peter Schreyer to president this week, making him the first non-Korean president in the company's history.
Schreyer, who was born in Germany according to Kia, was hired from Volkswagen AG in 2006, and worked his way up to vice president and then finally president his week. He's only the third president in Kia's histor according to the company's site.
Hyundai and Kia are both run by Chairman Chund Mong Koo, and his son Chung Eui Sun hired Schreyer over six years ago.
"The promotion shows Kia's key focus areas shifting from production and cost efficiency, which were traditionally considered more important, to design and research and development," said Shin Chung Kwan, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul to Automotive News. "It also symbolizes Kia's urge to advance as a global company -- showing a foreigner could make it to one of the top positions."
Both Hyundai and Kia have increased their efforts to move away from their reputations as builders of "cheap, utilitarian cars" according to Automotive News. The company feels that Schreyer will be a big part of that as he has experience designing the Audi TT Coupe for Volkswagen.
Before Schreyer joined Kia, he thought the designers neutral, and felt he could make vehicles more recognizable.
"I wanted to give Kia a character and a family feel. If you come to a country and you see a Kia, you should recognize it immediately, like you recognize a BMW or Mercedes immediately," he said in an interview with Reuters in March.
Volkswagen meanwhile is left thinking what could have been since they let Schreyer go after working with the company from 1980 until 2006.
"We should not have let him go," Volkswagen's Chairman Ferdinand Piech told Automotive News in November.
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