Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo leaves the French car manufacturer. He also leaves the automotive industry to become CEO of Kering, a luxury conglomerate that regroups brands like Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta.
A dry announcement of the Renault Group on Sunday evening rocked the automotive world and especially the whole of France: “After 5 years at the head of Renault Group, Luca de Meo has announced his decision to step down and pursue new challenges outside the automotive sector.”
“The Board of Directors, convened by its Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard, expressed their gratitude to Luca de Meo for the turnaround and transformation of Renault Group and accepted that his departure would be effective from July 15, 2025,” the press release added.
The reaction of de Meo himself sounded as follows: “There comes a time in one’s life when one knows the job is done. At Renault Group, we have faced immense challenges in less than five years! We have achieved what many thought impossible. Today, the results speak for themselves: they are the best in our history. We have a strong team and an agile organization. We also have a strategic plan ready for the next generation of products. That is why I have decided it is time for me to hand over the baton. I am leaving a transformed company, poised for the future, to apply my experience to other sectors and embark on new adventures.”
A man for all seasons
Luca de Meo (58) is the son of a banker and has lived in 12 countries to date, including less obvious destinations such as Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. Despite being mainly educated in French, he retained a slight Italian accent that was somewhat sympathetic rather than annoying.
The father of a twin started, in fact, his automotive career at… Renault before leaving for Fiat. There, he made himself known as the father of the new 500 in 2007, a relaunch of the small Italian icon that partially saved the troubled Italian car maker at the time.
The multilingual, flamboyant Franco-Italian left Fiat for the Volkswagen Group, where he was tasked with reshaping and re-energizing Seat. It was there that, after the Carlos Ghosn debacle, Renault chair Jean-Dominique Senard lured him away to come and save the ailing French manufacturer.
At that time Renault was not only confronted with the rising success of its French competitor PSA under the reigns of Carlos Tavares, an ancient number two at Renault who was ousted in 2013 becoming a danger for the other Carlos, it was also seriously embarrassed by the difficulties its Japanese partner Nissan was experiencing, in which Renault had a 45% stake at the time.
de Meo’s ‘Renaulution’
de Meo started at Renault in 2020, joining a car manufacturer where the largest stakeholder was still the French state and a company that was deeply in the red financially. During his five years at Renault, de Meo met several ‘catastrophes’, beginning with the pandemic, right after his arrival, the chip crisis in the whole industry, and the Russian attack on Ukraine, which made him leave the Lada/Avtovaz part of the business for a symbolic sum to the Russian state.
Meanwhile, de Meo started turning around Renault with his ‘Renaulution’ plan. Renault was divided into two main divisions: Ampere had to implement the electrification plan, and Horse had to restructure the ICE business with the aid of an emerging Chinese automotive giant, Geely.
In the meantime, the Alliance with partners Nissan and Mitsubishi was completely re-aligned, and de Meo decided to apply its ‘resurrection formula’ again by making the new, fully electric Renault 5 (and also the R4) the new spearhead of Renault’s transition. The continuous success of Renault’s low-cost daughter Dacia was undoubtedly a serious aid in this challenging period. Meanwhile, de Meo still found the time to re-launch a forgotten sporty luxury brand under the Renault umbrella: Alpine.
During these five years, de Meo once again demonstrated his strategic genius and his immense flair for effective communication and marketing. Under no circumstances were the new Renault products allowed to be dull or anodine. And instead of considering the Chinese competition as the big enemy, he wanted to work with them and, especially, learn from them.
Total surprise
The departure of their beloved chief came as a big surprise at Renault. Not so long ago, de Meo was confirmed in his role as CEO of the Renault group and handed over the leadership of the various departments to people he could trust. The boss himself warned that Renault had always known ups and downs in its almost 130 years of history, and he wanted to change that ‘curse’.
Luca de Meo was already talking of a new, second ‘cycle of achievement’ and already had a name for it: ‘Futurama’. “Renault has never known two successive positive cycles, and I want to change this. It is my responsibility to establish a solid foundation for the next 20 years. We want to accelerate things and change from the French Premier League to the international Champions League and arrive in the semi-finals or even the grand final.”
And just now, the boss is abandoning ship. To almost everyone inside Renault, this has come as a total surprise. Nearly everyone saw Luca de Meo as “a car guy”, an addict of beautiful cars, design, car races, etc. Lately, there were rumors that de Meo could move to Stellantis, where they were desperately seeking a successor for Tavares. However, de Meo has decided otherwise completely.
“This move has surprised everyone,” says a union representative inside the group. “Five years at the head of Renault, that’s a short period, even with outstanding results until now. In a month, Luca de Meo will be gone, and finding a rightful successor for him will be time-consuming. Look at what happened at Stellantis.”
Nobody knows how long it will take the Renault board under Jean-Dominique Senard to find a successor, certainly not with the French state looking over the shoulder. Still, this temporary lack of steering will be considered harmful by employees and shareholders. Under de Meo’s reign, Renault shares have almost doubled in value (+96.7%), but car company shares have shown to be highly volatile lately.
Needing a second wind
In the world of high luxury, the results of Kering have been disappointing lately. In 2024, turnover decreased by 12% and net profit by 62% to €1.1 billion. That has reflected in the value of shares: -28% this year already, -43% over the last year.
Chairman and CEO François-Henri Penault, a ‘PDG’ in the old French style, has finally decided that he needed a new wind to resurrect his empire and has apparently succeeded in convincing Luca de Meo to accept this new challenge. The automotive sector has lost an influential and engaging voice.
