BMW M’s New Boss Is The Man Behind The New 8 Series

See this gentleman right here? His name is Markus Flasch, and he’s the new boss at BMW M GmbH.

The Austrian native has been at the Bavarian automaker for over three years now, and was most recently in charge of developing the new 8-Series coupe. So he clearly has a penchant for performance and luxury that will surely come in handy as the chairman of the board of management (German terminology for “chief executive”) at BMW’s performance division.

On October 1, Flasch will take the reins from Franciscus van Meel, who’s sat in the big chair at the M division since 2015, when he ported over from Audi’s performance division (known then as Quattro GmbH, now as Audi Sport). Van Meel is being put in charge of “total vehicle development” for the entire BMW Group.

At the same time, the automaker announced that Mini marketing boss Sebastian Mackensen is taking over sales and marketing for BMW Germany – the company’s third-largest market – with his successor at Mini still to be named.

Van Meel was instrumental in developing the new M5 with its trick all-wheel drive system. He also oversaw the expansion of the second-tier M Performance lineup with models like the M140i and M240i, M550i and M550d, M760Li, X2 M35i, X3 and X4 M40i, X5 and X6 M50d, the new Z4 M40i, and the M850i on which his department surely collaborated closely with his successor’s.

Flasch will now oversee the launch of several models that were principally developed under van Meel’s watch, including the new X3 M and X4 M, and the next-generation M3 and M4, before moving on to new models that’ll bear his own signature.