Businessman of Maltese descent to take over as Ferrari managing director
A businessman of Maltese descent is to take over as Ferrari managing director as changes were announced at the top of the mother company Fiat Chrysler in the wake of the serious illness of Sergio Marchionne.
Louis Carey Camilleri is to be nominated Ferrari managing director, while Mike Manley is to be named CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Camilleri, 63, is a former chairman of Philip Morris International. He comes from a Maltese family that lived in Cairo.
Camilleri received a degree in economics and business administration from HEC Lausanne, the Faculty of Business & Economics of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). He joined Philip Morris Europe in 1978 as a business development analyst. He held various positions of increasing authority involving the cigarette business in Europe and the Middle East.
He was named senior vice-president and chief financial officer of Philip Morris in November 1996 and became CEO of Philip Morris, now Altria Group, in April 2002. Philip Morris USA is the largest tobacco company in the United States, with about half of the US cigarette market.
Divorced since 2004, Camilleri is the father of three and speaks fluent English, French and Italian, as well as some German. International media reports say that he began dating supermodel Naomi Campbell since at least July 2017.
A Fiat Chrysler company statement said the decisions was made at an urgently convened Board meeting Saturday because Mar- chionne's health had suddenly deteriorated following recent surgery and he "will be unable to return to work".
Marchionne, 66, had already announced he would step down in early 2019, so the Board's decision, to be confirmed at an upcoming shareholders' meeting, will "accelerate" the CEO transition process.
Marchionne, an Italian-Canadian, joined Fiat in 2004 and led the Turin-based company's merger with bankrupt US carmaker Chrysler as well as the spin-off of luxury sports car maker Ferrari.
In a statement after an emergency Board meeting on Saturday, Ferrari said John Elkann, heir of the Agnelli family that founded Fiat more than 100 years ago, would take over as Ferrari chairman.
Fiat spun off Ferrari in 2015 but Marchionne remained CEO and chairman and had planned to announce in September a new five-year plan for the carmaker. No succession plans had been announced and it was widely expected that Marchionne would remain on in some capacity, even after giving up the reins of Fiat Chrysler Automobile.
Marchionne's overarching goal had been to turn Ferrari into a luxury company beyond cars to further leverage the brand.