PSA Taps CFO Saint-Geours to Lead Brand Development

PARIS – PSA Peugeot Citroen, which is losing market share and profits rapidly as it struggles to become more global and up-market, names its experienced Chief Financial Officer Frederic Saint-Geours to take over brand development from young-lion Jean-Marc Gales, who will leave the company at the end of March.

The French auto maker said last month it expects the company’s second-half 2011 operating loss to be more than E405 million ($529 million).

There is no indication that Gales is being fired. PSA says he is leaving voluntarily, and in a statement CEO Philip Varin thanks him for his contributions and wishes him well.

A spokesman tells local media if Gales had been fired, he would not be planning to remain on the management board for the next two months. The changes in operation leadership took effect Jan. 4.

Gales, 48, joined the auto maker in March 2009 to run the Citroen brand for then-CEO Christian Streiff, who at about the same time removed Geours from his post running Automobiles Peugeot and made him an advisor.

Gales has worked for BMW, Volkswagen, General Motors and Mercedes. Once Varin became CEO, he rehabilitated Geours as CFO and promoted Gales to run both brands.

PSA has been pursuing a strategy of bringing the two brands together behind their public faces. For a decade, manufacturing and product development have been linked, and design has been under a single executive for several years.

On Jan. 1, Gales’ brand directorate was reorganized to take sales and marketing responsibility away from the brand directors and hand it to a centralized organization. For example, Citroen dealers in Austria could be pushed to meet goals by a boss in Austria who also is setting goals for the Peugeot network.

The Austrian sales chief reports to Jean-Philippe Imparato, who was named director of commerce for Europe and answers to Gales. Countries outside Europe have a country director who reports to Yves Moulin, who also answers to Gales.

The brand managers of Peugeot and Citroen, Vincent Rambaud and Frederic Banzet respectively, now are in charge of product development, which previously was under Gales.

Saint-Geours will keep his role as head of Banque PSA Finance but will be replaced as executive vice president-finance by Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon, who has been group financial controller.

“I am delighted that Frederic Saint-Geours is taking on the role of executive vice president for brands” Varin says in his statement. “He will put his financial rigor and experience of commercial activities to the service of the two key pillars of our strategy: product upgrading and globalization.”