Though you may not know it from the outside, make no mistake about it: McLaren is in the process of cleaning house. And with this latest staff announcement, it may have finally closed the last chapter and moved onto the next.
The news surrounds one Ekrem Sami, who has served until now as head of marketing in Woking. Now he’s on his way out, which may not seem like a big deal in and of itself, until you look at what that means for McLaren.
Sami has worked for McLaren for an impressive 35 years, having come on board shortly after Ron Dennis took over. After the company’s other shareholders ousted Dennis from the chair at the head of the table, Sami was asked to step down from the board around the same time that they sacked Jost Capito, the former Ford and VW rally chief whom Dennis had brought on board to run the F1 operation.
Sami was kept on board as CEO of McLaren Marketing, but has now stepped down from that position as well. His departure consolidates power in the hands of the company’s new managing director Zak Brown and majority shareholders Mansour Ojjeh and Mohammed Bin Essa Al Khalifa, who represents the government of Bahrain on McLaren’s executive committee that’s now calling the shots in the wake of Dennis’ departure.
“I don’t mind admitting that it feels a bit strange to be announcing that I’m moving on from McLaren, the company to which I’ve devoted almost all my professional life. But now is the right time. However, I’ll continue to work on the projects with which I’m already engaged, and I expect to formalise my departure some time in late March,” said Sami in a statement released by his former employers.
“Over the past 35 years I’ve worked with some truly brilliant people, and I want to say thank you to them all. Our successes were a team effort in the most fundamental way.”
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