An engineer or a salesman? Who is the new CEO at Alpine?

With the announcement that Laurent Rossi will be the new CEO of the Alpine brand within the Renault Group, this also marks the end of Cyril Abiteboul with the French manufacturer. He was originally supposed to be promoted to the position of CEO at Alpine, but Renault is now opting for a fresh restart.

At least, Renault seems at first sight to be putting forward a really new name with Laurent Rossi. However, he is certainly not a new face at Renault. Immediately after his studies, he started working as an engineer at the manufacturer, where he spent almost seven years tuning engines.

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However, after that first period at Renault, he left his engineering life behind and went into consultancy. This led him to Google in 2012, where he worked mainly in marketing and sales. Three years ago, he returned to Renault to do more or less the same for them as 'Strategy Offer'.

So he seems to be the ideal man for the Alpine project. An engineer who knows how to sell a brand. Because the latter is of course the big goal behind the blue spray painting on the F1 team. Renault really wants to turn Alpine into a motorsport brand and has therefore officially had Renault Sport replaced by this brand name.