Antonio Filosa has been running Stellantis while doing two jobs. As of November 4, he has one.
The Stellantis CEO named Pablo Di Si Chief Operating Officer for North America and the American Brands, effective immediately. Di Si joins the Stellantis Leadership Team and reports directly to Filosa, who had kept personal control of the region while running the global company.
Filosa wasn’t the only one wearing extra hats. CFO Joao Laranjo had also been doubling as North America’s finance chief. That role now goes to Jon Nelson, who will report to Di Si.
So the two most senior executives at a global automaker were both directly running its most profitable region. This reshuffle pulls both of them back a step.
Filosa was blunt about where the money lives. “North America is critical to Stellantis’ success and the delivery of our FaSTLAne 2030 strategy,” he said.
The company’s own scorecard for the Filosa stretch reads like a repair invoice. Manufacturing efficiency and quality improved, and inventory got “greater discipline.”
Customer choice was “restored.” Market momentum was “rebuilt.”
Every one of those verbs implies something was broken first. Anyone who watched Jeep and Ram dealer lots swell with unsold stock in recent years knows exactly what the inventory line refers to.
Di Si’s statement leaned on the same vocabulary. He described a team that has “already done so much to turn around this critical business,” and promised to “build from a solid foundation.”
That is turnaround language, from the man now responsible for finishing the turnaround.
His résumé fits the assignment. Di Si spent more than 25 years across finance, strategy, business development and operations. He ran Volkswagen’s operations in both North America and South America, and held leadership roles at Fiat Chrysler before that.
Most recently he served as Stellantis Chief Performance Officer, steering the Value Creation Program, the company’s internal push to sharpen performance and competitiveness worldwide. That is a cost and efficiency job.
Stellantis is now putting a cost and efficiency executive in charge of Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler.
The list of people Di Si addressed was telling, too: employees, dealers, suppliers, unions and business partners across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Those are the groups that have absorbed the friction of the past few years.
The Value Creation Program doesn’t lose its driver. Gustavo Soloaga steps in as Chief Performance Officer, effective immediately, reporting to Laranjo. Soloaga brings more than 30 years of finance leadership across Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa at Groupe PSA and Stellantis.
The finance arm shifts as well. Nelson vacates the CEO post at Stellantis Financial Services, and Alexandre Sorel takes it over while keeping his existing role running Financial Services in Europe. Sorel, a former CEO of Opel Vauxhall Finance, also reports to Laranjo.
Look at where these people came from. Soloaga and Sorel both rose through the PSA side of the merger, while Di Si carries Fiat Chrysler history. The finance and performance machinery tilts toward PSA veterans, and North America goes to a former FCA hand.
Filosa, himself a longtime FCA and Jeep executive, now gets to manage the region instead of personally operating it.
The handoff happened on day one, with no transition period announced. Di Si inherits a North American business his boss calls repaired, along with a dealer network, a union and a supplier base all waiting to see what he does with it.
Share this Story