If you’ve noticed that Hyundai hiring a string of designers and engineers lately from German automakers, you’ve been paying close attention. But this time a German automaker has poached one away from the Koreans.
His name is David Napoléon Genot, and he’s just been named Executive Design Director of Europe for Borgward Group AG. Born in Belgium and educated in Germany, Genot interned in the Audi and Seat design departments, then worked at Renault. But for the past dozen years he’s held a series of design roles in the European studios for Hyundai and Kia, working on projects like the Kia GT concept and the production Pro_Cee’d and Sportage.
Since the Korean automakers’ maintain their European design studios in Germany, Genot won’t have to move far. But his shift in employers stands in start contrast to colleagues like Luc Donckerwolke (also Belgian) who moved from the Volkswagen Group to head the Hyundai design studio responsible for the Genesis brand, Donckerwolke’s German predecessor Peter Schreyer (Kia’s chief designer and co-president), and former BMW M chief engineer Albert Biermann who also recently moved to Hyundai.
Genot will work under Anders Warming, who headed up Mini’s design department before being picked up by Borgward. The company says it is the only German automaker with a management board position for design, which Warming will fill.
Though awkwardly named, Borgward is in the process of reviving a storied German auto marque. The company was founded in 1929 by Carl F. W. Borgward, and is now being revived by a team headed by his grandson Christian Borgward. The brand resurfaced last year in Frankfurt with the presentation of the BX7, the first in a string of crossover concepts that preview the renewed company’s production intentions.
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