Jaguar Land Rover to be led by ex-Renault chief Bollore

Jaguar Land Rover parent Tata Motors has named Thierry Bollore to be the next CEO of the U.K. luxury automaker.

Bollore, who was fired from his post as Renault CEO in October, will replace Ralf Speth as JLR boss starting Sept. 10, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Speth, 64, is scheduled to retire in September and will become non-executive vice-chairman of JLR.

“It will be my privilege to lead this fantastic company through what continues to be the most testing time of our generation,” Bollore said in the filing.

JLR was hit this year first by disruption to sales in China, the world’s biggest car market, and then by lockdowns in key markets across Europe and North America.

In 2019, JLR cut costs to address tumbling diesel sales which helped it return to profit before being hit by the pandemic, which contributed to a pretax loss of 422 million pounds ($530 million) for the financial year to March 31.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.