New Managing Director Appointed at GM Korea Design Center

GM Korea’s new managing director of production design hits the ground running at the GM Korea Design Center in Bupyeong.

Veteran designer Jaehak Namgoong starts his first day in operations with the Geneva auto show under way and with the design center undergoing a major expansion that will double its size by the end of the year.

A GM Korea spokesman, confirms the design center expansion is well under way at Bupyeong, but operations are not being interrupted. “The construction work is progressing and will double the size by adding a new building adjacent to the current design center,” he tells WardsAuto.

“The capacity for vehicle design is being expanded, and we expect GM Korea’s role will also be expanded when the facility is completed later this year.”

The design center works on a wide range of design programs for vehicles of all sizes, although GM Korea is the small-car homeroom for General Motors’ global operations.

“We have around 200 design staff, including the advanced design center that is located in Seoul,” the spokesman says. “We work not only on mini and small cars but for several other types for global GM.

“We are working at this time with the GM Holden design team in Australia on several global design programs.”

Namgoong, a veteran designer who once headed the Renault Samsung vehicle design operations, replaces Taewan Kim, who was vice president-design. He resigned from GM Korea for personal reasons last October.

Namgoong joins GM Korea from Renault, where he spent 10 years and was deputy director-design for utility and commercial vehicles. He first joined the French auto maker as managing director-design at Renault Samsung in Korea, where he established a new vehicle design center at Kiheung near Seoul, as the bridgehead for Renault in Asia.

While managing design operations for Renault Samsung, Namgoong brought several new vehicles to fruition. They include the SM3, SM5, SM7 and QM5, also called the Renault Koleos.

In 2007, he transferred to France where he served as Renault’s international program design director at the Renault Technocentre in the Paris suburb of Guyancourt. He was appointed deputy director of utility and commercial-vehicle design in 2009.

Before joining Renault, Namgoong worked from 1995 to 2003 with Chrysler as a senior designer in Auburn Hills, MI. There he worked on such vehicles as the second-generation Dodge Viper, Sebring sedan, Neon SRT, Dodge Caliber and other models. He was awarded three patents for his design work.

Namgoong holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Sogang University in Seoul and a bachelor’s degree in transportation design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He also studied business at the renowned École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales (ESSEC Business School) in Paris.