On this week’s episode of The Auto Ethnographer, host John Stech is joined by Dr. Susanne Lehmann, Managing Director of Volkswagen Group Malaysia. During the conversation they “visit” Malaysia, Mexico, China, and the United States and discuss how each location’s culture required different work styles.

Dr. Lehmann studied economic sciences and later earned her PhD in global automotive supply chains. Alongside she studied the impact of culture on the workplace, a topic that would serve her well on her journey.

Her first stop on her career was Volkswagen de México in a logistics role. After adapting to a culture vastly different from her own German upbringing, she would later have a second stint in Mexico as the Senior Director of Production for the Volkswagen brand in North America.

She later moved halfway around the planet to participate in the early days of expanding automotive manufacturing in China. She recounts stories from these days in the early 2000s and then juxtaposes them to a second stint she did in China in 2021-2023 as Senior Director of Logistics for a 1.6 million vehicle operation. The lightning speed of China’s auto sector development is a key part of the conversation.

Susanne also spent time in North America, as a member of the ramp-up team in Volkswagen’s new Chattanooga, Tennessee production facility. Here, employee individualism required significantly different management tools than in the collectivist cultures of China and Mexico.

Her current assignment as Managing Director of Volkswagen Group’s Malaysian operation added an addition dimension beyond culture. For the first time she was also responsible for the more qualitative topics of Sales & Marketing, Customer Service, and the dealer network. She discusses how she has worked to master this area during a career previously focused on logistics and manufacturing.

During the conversation, Susanne shares fascinating insights on how she navigated cultures and the challenges they presented in each assignment.

For more information on The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

In this week's episode of The Auto Ethnographer podcast, host John Stech speaks with Andreas Schlegel on working in Germany, the United States, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Sweden. Andreas recounts his journey through a number of premium and performance brands including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Aston Martin, Lotus Motorcars, and Volvo. He even did a stint with F1 team Williams Racing.

Growing up in the Stuttgart, Germany area, Andreas started his career with Mercedes-Benz in their Nachwuchsgruppe management trainee program. This took him to the US and South Africa for early intercultural work experience.

Andreas then found an opportunity with Porsche where he focused on dealer network management as well as directly supporting the company's Head of Sales & Marketing during an exciting growth period for the brand - the first-generation Cayenne was in the pipeline at the time.

His time at Porsche was then parlayed into several roles at Aston Martin including APAC Region Sales as well as leading the companies Dealer Network efforts. He would leave but later return to Aston Martin in the role of Global Marketing Director.

As Lotus Motorcars set about to reinvent itself with a slew of new products, Andreas joined the team as Director of Marketing. He would be the one to organize the introduction of five new Lotus concepts at the Paris Motorshow in 2010.

Shortly afterwards, Volvo cars would also set out on a path of reinvention. Andreas moved to Sweden to help guide the company's global dealer network strategy, a sweeping effort to modernize hundreds of dealers around the globe.

Perhaps most exciting, he joined the team at Williams Racing to build a heritage business, retrofitting and refurbishing old Williams F1 cars for well-heeled customers. This brought him to the heart of one of the most storied F1 teams on the circuit.

You can find links to all major podcast apps at The Auto Ethnographer homepage by clicking on https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

The Auto Ethnographer, John Stech, has a conversation with Jorge Mussi, the General Manager of Aftersales and the Customer Services Division at Toyota do Brasil about his journey from his native Brazil to Sweden and the United States and back to Brazil. He tells his story that begins with Volvo and is currently evolving at Toyota. 

Jorge’s automotive journey started with Volvo Truck & Bus in the early 1990s. For his love of cars, he moved over to Volvo’s passenger car division where he experienced several historical shifts of Brazilian trade policy regarding car imports. He recounts how this impacted the company and how Brazilian and Swedish management styles worked together in these challenging periods.

Taking an opportunity to live and work in Sweden at Volvo’s headquarters, he relocated to Gothenburg, eventually becoming a Swedish citizen. Jorge discusses how he had to adapt to local culture, even learning proficient Swedish after only four months. He discusses the Swedish decision-making process and how it actually takes place.

Jorge returned to Brazil as Volvo Car Brazil’s Director of Aftersales and Head of Government Affairs. He realized his advantages in running these operations having learned the inner workings of the headquarters in Sweden.

Another opportunity lay around the corner as Jorge joined Volvo Car Americas team in the United States as Director of Aftersales and Customer Services overseeing over 20 markets in Latin America, plus Canada. Here he was faced with the many nuanced differences across Latin American countries. They have one common language (or do they?) but many different cultural attributes.

Upon his return to Brazil, Jorge joined Toyota do Brasil during a restructuring and realignment of the company’s strategy. However, it was his first time working within a Japanese management philosophy. He discusses how he learned and adapted to this new style of business.

https://www.toyota.com.br/

For more information on The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

The Auto Ethnographer is joined by Greg Clark who expounds on his experiences working with Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, American Honda, and INEOS Automotive. Four distinctly different brands, each with its own culture.  During the conversation we "visit" the UK, Germany, Japan, and United States and the unique working cultures of each. 

Greg, a native of the United Kingdom, moved to the United States for his studies. He parlayed that stay into the beginnings of an automotive career with Mercedes-Benz and Honda in the US. He worked in product management at both companies but each functioned much differently on the same topic.

After expanding the Mercedes-AMG centers in the US, he took over the overall AMG brand in the United States. Following successful growth of the brand and its sales, he transferred to Mercedes-AMG headquarters in Affalterbach, Germany. It took some time to sort out how to work with the German culture but Greg persevered.

He then transitioned to Jaguar Land Rover to lead an engineering department. This was a major shift in culture, company, and corporate function. He then slid over into JLR Brand Management and steered marketing over markets in the Overseas Region.

These experiences culminated in a preparedness a new challenge. He launched the INEOS Grenadier in the Americas as he took over as head of the region. This vehicle was born of English roots, German engineering, and French-based manufacturing. His task was to successfully introduce it to the United States and other markets in the Americas.

Greg introspectively discusses the challenges at each company and with each national culture that he encountered. He highlights some of the pitfalls that leaders can avoid due to cultural differences in the workplace.

To learn more about The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

This week on The Auto Ethnographer podcast, host John Stech speaks with Stavros Paraskevaides, located near Athens, Greece. Stavros recounts the challenging eight years he spent in the Middle East and how he managed a wide array of cultures within a distributor operation. He now puts those learnings to use for clients at SP4A Advisory, a consultancy he founded in 2021.

Stavros led BMW and Rolls-Royce at the brands’ largest distributor in Saudi Arabia, a large company with multiple locations and over 1,500 employees. These employees stemmed from the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, bringing with them many traditions, work ethics, and cultural differences.

He also worked for another distributor in Qatar, responsible for the Hyundai, Genesis, and Chevrolet brands. Here, the challenges were similar.

Prior to his Middle East journey, Stavros worked for Mercedes-Benz in several countries including his native Greece where he rose to Managing Director of the brand. He also led Sales Operations for the brand in the United States where he found Mercedes-Benz USA to be a vastly different scale than what had known in Greece. He speaks about his experiences during his first overseas working experience during the podcast.

His career originally started with Toyota Motor Company in Greece before making the move to Mercedes-Benz.

SP4A Advisory:  https://www.sp4advisory.com/

MotorWerks Garage:  http://www.MotorWerks.gr

In this week's episode John Stech, host of The Auto Ethnographer, has a conversation with with Gianfranco Pizzuto, Founder and CEO of Automobili Estrema, a company designing and preparing the Fulminea e-hypercar for launch. He also reveals plans for a new, as-yet, unannounced project.

Born and raised in northern Italy where the borders of Austria and Switzerland converge with his native country, Gianfranco was raised bi-lingual Italian and German. He attributes his upbringing to his success in navigating across cultures in the business world.

Long before his dream of building a car came to be, Gianfranco was a co-founder and Vice President at FAE Group, a manufacturer of agriculture and forestry attachments for tractors.

He went on to become Fisker Automotive’s first investor in 2007, working together with founder Henrik Fisker in realizing a hybrid-electric premium sports car. Gianfranco was not only an investor in Fisker but also a distributor in several European countries.

Following the bankruptcy and demise of Fisker, Gianfranco continued to innovate in the electric vehicle arena. He founded Scuderia-e, a company which would convert American specification Fiat 500e vehicles to European specification. But that was not all. The company redeveloped the battery, battery management system, and charging capability to improve the vehicle beyond the original that had left a Fiat factory.

With the onset of Covid, Gianfranco’s engineering team convened virtually to discuss the dream of building an electric hypercar. Weekly meetings solidified the dream into reality, resulting in first a small scale model being built but ultimately a full-size vehicle. The Fulminea is still under development but launch plans are in place.  To learn more about Automobili Estrema and the Fulminea, you can visit the website at

https://fulminea.com/

Returning from a recent trip to China, where he visited Xiaomi’s automobile factory, Gianfranco recalls his impressions and issues a caution to Western competitors about the competitiveness of China’s technology and the national spirit for success.

Visit The Auto Ethnographer's homepage for more information about the podcast series at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

In this week's episode John Stech, host of The Auto Ethnographer, has a conversation with Gareth Dunsmore. With an appreciation of different cultures going back to his childhood, thanks to his family, Gareth talks about his experiences working overseas with Nissan and VinFast. He also speaks about McLaren and how to convey its Britishness around the world.

Gareth started his marketing career with Nissan Motors UK but had an opportunity earlier in his career to move to Nissan’s regional office based in Paris. He spent 11 years living in France and Switzerland working with Nissan marketing departments across the AMIEO Region (Africa, Middle East, India, Europe, and Oceania).

He returned to England with a new challenge and adventure, working as Chief Marketing Officer at McLaren, maker of renowned supercars. Here he faced an unexpected challenge – working with British colleagues following his stint abroad. Gareth discusses that challenge as well as how to market a brand like McLaren to consumers outside of the UK.

After McLaren, Gareth set out on a big adventure, taking on the role of Deputy CEO of Sales & Marketing at VinFast Automotive, an upstart electric vehicle producer based near Hanoi, Vietnam. This would be the most daunting challenge yet but Gareth found the way to succeed and to gain respect from his Vietnamese colleagues, who had predisposed notions about Westerners.

Gareth has since returned to Nissan Motors where he is Managing Director for e-Micro Mobility Nissan for the AMIEO region. This includes the Silence Eco Urban Mobility range.

Visit The Auto Ethnographer's homepage for more information about the podcast series at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

In this week's episode John Stech, host of The Auto Ethnographer, has a conversation with Dr. Helmut Groesser. Helmut spent most of his career in Product Management at Mercedes-Benz. Most of the vehicles you know over the past decade were influenced by Helmut and his team in some way.  Today he talks about how Mercedes-Benz considered different country-market requirements and some of the interesting ways to convince the vaunted Mercedes-Benz Engineering Department to adapt the vehicles. 

He took a detour to the United States for three years to work on the Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge brands when Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler were joined under the DaimlerChrysler roof. Here he helped to bring the more advanced Mercedes product planning methods to Auburn Hills, Michigan in order to prepare Chrysler for its coming global product offensive in the early to mid-2000s. Helmut speaks candidly about his time in that role and about the differences in working between Germans and Americans. 

Helmut also speaks about his time working as Head of Sales for Mercedes-AMG, a highly operational role much different from his long-term-focused product strategy roles. He speaks of Mercedes-AMG's development process and how speed was achieved even when vehicle lines were developed within the parent company. 

Living in the United States and working with people around the world has impacted Helmut personally. He explains how with some thought-provoking anecdotes. 

Visit The Auto Ethnographer's homepage for more information about the podcast series at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com

This week John Stech, host of The Auto Ethnographer is joined by Greg Tebbutt. Greg has spent 30 years in marketing with half of that in the automotive industry, both on the agency and the automaker sides. On the agency side he worked with Nissan, BMW, Audi, and Volkswagen (South Africa).  On the automaker side, he worked with Volkswagen (USA), VinFast, and Meyers Manx.  The conversation centers on the Volkswagen brand in South Africa, of which Greg is a native, as well as the United States, providing a rich comparison between the two markets.

The tale of the Volkswagen brand between South Africa and the United States could not be more different. VW commands the highest market share in South Africa outside of its home market in Germany. And in the US market VW typically has the lowest share of any markets it serves. Greg and I dive into the differences, what causes them, and what could be done for improvement. 

Greg Tebbutt served as Senior Director, Marketing Strategy & Communications at Volkswagen of America. Subsequently he led VinFast's launch marketing efforts as the US CMO.  He has also guided the marketing as Meyers Manx, an iconic dune buggy brand as it transitions to an electric vehicle brand. 

https://auto-ethnographer.com

John Stech, The Auto Ethnographer, introduces the concept of autoethnography and how it became "auto ethnography" with a focus on cars.  On this podcast we tell the human stories behind the famous automotive and vehicle brands, spanning continents, countries, and cultures across the globe. We unlock the mysteries of local culture, values, and approaches to success in the vehicle industry.

Derived from Tony E. Adams’ definition, "autoethnography" is a research method leaning on the experiences of individuals to analyze assumptions, culture, communication, local norms, traditions, emotional impact, and how they mesh with greater culture and society where they operate. Normally, "auto" relates to the self – as in "autobiography". But we put wheels on it and focus on vehicles.