AutoRevista presents the 2023 Director of the Year Awards

The formidable speed of transformation in vehicle production factories and their traction in the value chain of manufacturing means and components mark the nominations for the 33rd edition of the Automotive Industry Manager of the Year Awards, which AutoRevista has been awarding since 1991.

Nominees for the Automotive Manufacturer of the Year Awards

In the transformation that the Volkswagen Group is undergoing in Spain, the appointment of Markus Haupt, as Vice-President for Production and Logistics of SEAT and CUPRA, has to do with his comprehensive and efficient experience in the Group. Trained in Business Management in Barcelona, he began his professional career in the Volkswagen Group in 2001, specifically in the Prototypes Department at SEAT Martorell. In 2002, he moved to the same department at Audi, before, in 2004, again at SEAT, he took over the Prototypes Department for the Platform& Group projects. From 2007, Haupt was responsible for Process and Project Management in SEAT's Preseries Department and was instrumental in the launch of the Audi Q3 at the Martorell plant. Four years later, he took over the management of Production Projects.

In 2014, he joined VW Autoeuropa (Palmela) as Manager Product Management & Planning, where, together with the entire team at the plant, he successfully completed the series launch of the T-Roc. In 2018, he took over the role of Product Modification Management & Modular Construction at Volkswagen AG (Wolfsburg) and in the same year took over Production Planning for the Volkswagen Group. After a brief but fruitful stint at Volkswagen Navarra with the consolidation of the T-Cross and the launch of the Taigo, he leads two key responsibilities in the Future Fast Forward project as Production and Logistics.

On the road to his first two years as Director of Renault Group's Iberia Vehicle Industrial Hub, José Martín Vega is captaining the development of the hybrid vehicle production network in Spain with remarkable success. This is demonstrated by the launch of the "most Spanish" model ever built, such as the Austral in Palencia, a plant which this year has been awarded the contract for the new Espace and Rafale, on which he will be pouring his extensive experience with the brand's benchmark, the Mégane. The experience of the teams led by Martín Vega is also reflected in a plant in Valladolid which, in addition to the solid Captur, has also joined forces with a member of the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance, in the form of the latter's ASX.

An industrial engineer from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Industrial de Valladolid, José Martín Vega is a clear example of talent dedicated to Renault, a company he joined in 1997 at the Palencia plant in the Welding Department. After holding various positions of responsibility at the factory, such as head of the Bodywork and Assembly and Project 15/40 departments, he moved to the Technocentre (France) to take responsibility for the factory's industrial projects. In 2013, he was appointed director of the French factory in Maubeuge, where his work earned him the "President Award". In 2016, he was appointed Director of the Palencia Factory, a position he held until 2020. A true expert in Renault's production model.

The complexity of such a heterogeneous giant, rich in automotive culture, is the challenge for which, at an industrial level, Stellantis has chosen Manuel Munárriz Cardiel. This industrial mechanical engineer from the University of Zaragoza and the University of Glasgow, has more than 20 years of professional experience in the company, where he has held various positions of responsibility in the industrial and quality areas in the successive stages of the Zaragoza plant. He has also held management positions at the German plants in Rüsselsheim and Eisenach, both of which are flagships of the Opel brand. 

He was no doubt familiar with the peculiarities of the German brand's integration into the PSA Group relatively recently, until Stellantis emerged at the beginning of 2021. Already in the organisation chart of the corporation, he proved his worth at the head of a factory he knows as well as the one in Figueruelas, which has achieved milestones as relevant as the electric Opel Corsa and which is strongly positioned to host the Group's future industrial projects.. A performance that undoubtedly qualifies him to take on the position of director of global industrial strategy for the Franco-Italian-US group.

Nominees for the Supplier Manager of the Year Award

Executives from three German multinationals make up the shortlist for the Supplier Manager of the Year Award. All of them are leading companies with a high degree of added value for the industrial operations of their customers.

If the world of automotive paint installations has an unquestionable and top-level reference in Dürr, Luis Echeveste has been increasingly important since he joined the multinational in 1991. With a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Navarra, since he joined the company, he worked as Project Manager in the Dürr until 2006 as Project Manager in the Paint and Final Assembly Systems (PFS) division, developing projects in various countries in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as heading the division's Engineering Department. These projects included Project Manager in the paint plant at Mercedes Benz González Catán (Argentina), plastics painting plant at Volkswagen Puebla (Mexico), project manager of the Audi Curitiba paint booths (Brazil) and Project Manager of the VW Navarra paint line.

After four years as director of the PFS engineering division, he became the head of the division, a responsibility that was joined by those of president and CEO of Dürr Systems Spain and president and CEO of Dürr Systems Maroc. He is also a member of the advisory board of TECNUN, the engineering school of the University of Navarra, Echeveste fully represents the values of Dürr.

From his almost 30 years of belonging to the Bosch Group, Javier González Pareja has been leading the company in Spain and Portugal since 2017. He began his professional career in the multinational in 1994, when he joined the Juniors Manager Program, after completing his studies in Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid and at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Subsequently, he has held various management positions in Spain and Portugal, mainly in the areas of Controlling and Finance, as well as the position of Vice President Corporate Human Resources at Bosch headquarters in Germany. Since 2011, he has been Bosch General Manager for Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro.

Since he took over the company's operations in the Iberian Peninsula, González Pareja has weathered the ups and downs that have affected the entire industry in recent years, strengthening the subsidiary as one of Bosch's most important in Europe. Sustainability in products and processes, strengthening of the Mobility Solutions area and commitment to hydrogen are some of the keys to the recent evolution of the company with González Pareja at the helm.

In his almost 25 years of experience at KUKA, Fernando Sánchez has embodied the spirit of excellence of a company specialising in intelligent robotics solutions with a growing solvency in Spain, as embodied in its R&D centre in Vilanova i la Geltrú. An industrial technical engineer and electrical engineer from the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC School), MBA Executive at EAE Business School and PMD at ESADE, Sánchez joined KUKA in 1999 and for 15 years he worked as Sales Director at industrial level. In 2014, he assumed the position of CEO of the firm in Iberia, a territory to which he joins his competences in Latin America. Sánchez is a member of the KUKA Roboter Brasil board and of the board of directors of the Spanish Robotics Association (AER).

In almost a decade at the helm of the Iberian subsidiary and with his work in operations on the other side of the Atlantic, Sánchez has combined stability and growth. Aware of the 120-year legacy of a company like KUKA, he leads his teams from Industry 4.0 solutions both for the automotive industry and extending the spectrum of action to other sectors in which the world of robotics is increasingly being incorporated. Despite the complexity of recent years, KUKA has responded in the peninsula with the leadership of Fernando Sánchez.

Honour and Technological Innovation awards

In the categories of Honour for outstanding careers over time, the award in the Constructor category pays tribute to Emilio Titos, especially for his work at the head of the Mercedes Benz Vitoria factory. An industrial engineer from the University of Wuppertal (Germany), he joined Daimler in 1982 as an assembly planning engineer at the Düsseldorf plant. In September 1985, he moved to Vitoria as head of the Technical Planning Project and, in 1988, he was appointed head of the Engineering Division, a position he held until 2003, when he took charge of engineering at the Ludwigsfelde plant (Germany).

In September 2006, he was appointed General Manager of Production at the Alava plant, a position he currently holds and which he combined with that of head of the Vitoria and Barcelona industrial centres of Mercedes-Benz Spain. As head of the factory since 2008, Titos has led the transformation towards the production of electric models, being a pioneering plant in the manufacture of the Vito e-Cell, which has been followed by new proposals such as the EQV, making Vitoria a benchmark in Mercedes-Benz Vans. He currently chairs the association specialising in robotics and automation, Robotekin.

The homologous award recognises the extraordinary work of María Luisa Soria, Director of Institutional Relations and Innovation at SERNAUTO since 2017. She holds a PhD in Chemical Sciences from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a Master in Business Administration-MBA from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid. From 1985 to 2008, she worked in the R&D department of TudorExide Technologies as head and coordinator of national and European research projects, head of the Research Laboratory of S.E.A. Tudor and Research Director of the European Automotive division of Exide Technologies since 2017. 

She joined SERNAUTO in 2008 as head of R&D&I, and from 2010 to April 2017 she was the General Secretary of the Association. As Director of Institutional Relations and Innovation, she has represented the association in national and international forums and working groups. With the aim of promoting the competitiveness of the sector, she has managed several initiatives and projects to promote the participation of Spanish companies in European R&D&I programmes. He has taken part in working groups of the European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA). He has collaborated for 20 years with the European Commission as an independent expert in both the and monitoring of European R&D&I projects and in the Horizon 2020 Transport Advisory Group.

Finally, the AutoRevista Technology Innovation Award goes to Vahle, a global provider of systems for mobile industrial applications with a 111-year history. Its cross-sector portfolio includes intelligent solutions for flexible energy and data transmission as well as for positioning and control. Vahle is committed to working with automotive companies and their suppliers in all processes, from R&D to final product validation. This willingness to adapt to customer needs is vital to achieve an agile response in a market that is changing at an ever-increasing speed. The company has a range of innovative products related to contactless electrification and secure data transmission, even at high speed.

The awards will be presented at the end of November in Madrid. AutoRevista readers, in any case professionals linked to the automotive industry, can send, until 6 October, one vote for each of the two categories to the following address: autorevista@auto-revista.com

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