Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares abruptly resigned on Sunday, two months after warning of falling profits at the Jeep, Fiat and Peugeot carmaker, which has lost about 40 per cent of its value this year.
The company said it would try to find a replacement CEO in the first half of 2025. Senior independent director Henri de Castri said in a statement that there had been disagreements among major shareholders, the board and Tavares in recent weeks, leading to the CEO’s resignation.
In a statement, Stellantis said its board of directors, including chairman John Elkann, accepted the CEO’s resignation “with immediate effect” and that a new interim executive committee would be established under Elkann’s chairmanship.
Carlos Tavares was considered one of the most respected executives in the auto industry, but his approach has come under scrutiny after falling sales in North America forced the automaker to issue a 2024 profit warning in September.
The forecast called for a cash loss of up to 10 billion euros ($10.6 billion), mainly due to slow sales and bloated inventories in the North American market, the group’s main source of profit.
The warning prompted a major reshuffle in the group’s senior management, including a change of CFO and head of the North American division, but initially bypassed Tavares.
However, Stellantis has since announced that Tavares will not run for another term as CEO and will step down at the end of his current mandate in early 2026. The process of selecting a new CEO was originally scheduled to be completed by the last quarter of next year.
