Stellantis just handed its communications keys to an outsider. Stephanie Hartgrove, a Johnson & Johnson veteran with zero automotive experience, takes over as Chief Communications Officer effective September 1, reporting directly to CEO Antonio Filosa.
Hartgrove spent her career in medtech PR at J&J, oil and gas communications at Baker Hughes, and before that, GE. She started as a journalist at CNN and Al Jazeera. None of that involves selling cars, defending plant closures, or explaining why a brand portfolio of 14 nameplates still makes sense.
That is the point.
Filosa is clearly looking for someone unburdened by the internal politics that have defined Stellantis since the 2021 PSA-FCA merger. Someone who can reframe the narrative from scratch. The previous communications structure, led internally by Clara Ingen-Housz for 19 months, is being split apart. Ingen-Housz moves into a newly created role heading Public Policy, Regulatory Strategy, and International Trade.
Read that title again. It is a mouthful for a reason. Stellantis is building out a trade policy function inside the General Counsel’s office, which tells you everything about how this company sees its near-term future. Tariffs, CO2 regulations, import rules, and government negotiations are now front and center. The fact that this role reports directly to Filosa, not through layers of bureaucracy, signals urgency.
Filosa has been reshaping the leadership team since taking the wheel from Carlos Tavares late in 2024. The automaker has been bleeding market share in North America, wrestling with dealer discontent, and facing questions about whether its electrification strategy has any coherence across so many brands. The FaSTLAne 2030 plan is supposed to answer those questions, but so far the company has offered more reorganization charts than product launches.
Bringing in Hartgrove from the healthcare world is a bet that Stellantis needs a different kind of storytelling. Medtech communications is a world of regulatory scrutiny, crisis management, and carefully controlled messaging to skeptical audiences. That skill set maps neatly onto an automaker navigating investigations, union tensions, and shifting government policies on both sides of the Atlantic.
But there is a risk. The auto industry is deeply tribal. Dealers, suppliers, union leaders, and enthusiast media all speak a specific language.
Outsiders who try to apply generic corporate communications playbooks to this business tend to stumble. The last few years are littered with examples of tech-world executives who parachuted into automotive and discovered the culture eats frameworks for breakfast.
Ingen-Housz’s lateral move is worth watching closely. She spent 19 months running both corporate affairs and corporate communications. Now those responsibilities are being carved up, with the external voice going to Hartgrove and the policy machinery going to Ingen-Housz.
Filosa framed it as a promotion and a thank-you. In practice, it is a narrowing of scope that places a seasoned Stellantis insider into a technical role while handing the megaphone to a fresh face.
The timing tracks with the current trade environment. Stellantis manufactures across multiple continents and sells into markets with rapidly changing tariff structures. Having a dedicated policy strategist embedded in the legal function, rather than lumped under a general communications umbrella, reflects a company that expects trade friction to be a permanent operating condition, not a passing headache.
Two appointments, one message. Filosa wants to control how Stellantis talks and how it navigates the political landscape. Whether that translates into something the market and the customer actually feel remains an open question, one that no org chart can answer.
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