Chief creative o cer, Hyundai Motor Group
Key cars: Lamborghini Aventador; Seat |biza Mk4; Hyundai Prophecy
Donckerwolke so very nearly topped 2018’s list. His output as he worked his way up through the ranks at VW Group is fantastic: Skoda (Octavia Mk1 and Fabia Mk1) and Audi in the ’90s (A4 Avant Mk1, A2); Lamborghini (Gallardo, Aventador) and Seat (Ibiza Mk4) in the 2000s; and Bentley from 2012 (Flying Spur Mk2) all gained his design vision.
Tipped as a potential replacement for then VW Group boss Walter de Silva, in 2015 he was instead poached by Hyundai Motor Group and soon replaced the semi-retiring Peter Schreyer. Since then
Donckerwolke has created important global Hyundais (Elantra Mk7 and Prophecy concept) and also pushed the upmarket sister brand Genesis into a more convincing market position. He had a brief personal wobble in early 2020, leaving the business altogether for a few months, but returned later the same year. Now he’s chief creative ocer for the whole Hyundai Motor Group, including Hyundai, Genesis and Kia brands, with total sales rising year-on-year to more than 6.8m units in 2022, third place behind a falling VW Group (7.85m) and stable Toyota (10.1m) while influencing the wider industry with his individual ‘chess piece’ design model, rather than Russian-doll sameness.
He also oversees the Group’s Urban Air Mobility division, including electric flying taxi start-up Supernal. Son of a big game hunter, Donckerwolke speaks eight languages, likes the AK-47 as a piece of industrial design and thinks differently. The industry needs more like him.