Aston Martin names Ferrari veteran as CEO

In a major shakeup of its senior staff, Aston Martin on Wednesday named Amedeo Felisa as CEO. The Ferrari veteran will start the role on July 1, replacing Tobias Moers who has served as CEO for only the past two years. Prior to joining Aston Martin, Moers worked for Mercedes-Benz, including leading the AMG performance skunkworks.

Felisa is an automotive industry veteran who spent 26 years of his career with Ferrari, where he served as CEO between 2008 and 2016. He left Ferrari after the company was made public and has since served as an adviser for a number of companies, including Aston Martin and Silk-FAW, the supercar venture between Italian engineering startup Silk EV and Chinese auto giant FAW Group.

Felisa isn't the only former Ferrari executive joining Aston Martin. The company also announced on Wednesday that Roberto Fedeli will take over as chief technical officer starting on June 1. Like Felisa, Fedeli also spent 26 years at Ferrari, together with brief stints at BMW and Fiat, and more recently was also working at Silk-FAW.

Aston Martin also hired former Ferrari Formula One chief Marco Mattiacci in February. Mattiacci also led Ferrari's North American operations for several years, and at Aston Martin he has been assigned the role of global chief brand and commercial officer.

Amedeo Felisa

Another recent hire at Aston Martin is that of Doug Lafferty as chief financial officer. The former Williams F1 executive replaces Kenneth Gregor.

Aston Martin said more key appointments will be announced in the coming weeks.

Aston Martin didn't give a reason for Moers' exit but said the decision was mutual. It's rumored that Moers and Aston Martin Chairman Lawrence Stroll didn't share a vision of strategy, with one of the sticking points thought to be a decision to open a new R&D center in Italy instead of in Germany—something backed up by Aston Martin's hiring of former Ferrari staff. After joining Aston Martin, Moers made some key decisions like dropping plans for an in-house V-6 and increasing ties with technology partner and key shareholder Mercedes.

The news comes just a week after Aston Martin rival McLaren named Michael Leiters as CEO. Leiters also previously worked for Ferrari, serving as its chief technology officer up until last December. He worked as a senior engineer at Porsche before joining Ferrari.