Stellantis, currently the fourth largest vehicle manufacturer in the world, has officially announced the appointment of Antonio Filosa as new CEO. The announcement marks an important change of direction at the top of the company born from the merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Peugeot. Filosa will replace Carlos Tavares, who resigned in December 2024 following internal pressures and increasingly complex market dynamics.
Antonio Filosa is certainly not a choice far from the group or unexpected: he is currently Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Americas and global head of quality for the group. His appointment will be effective starting next June 23, the date on which the official announcement of the new executive team that will support him in managing the automotive giant is expected.
After three years of French-led direction under Tavares‘ guidance, Stellantis thus returns to having Italian leadership, with John Elkann, group chairman, remaining a key figure on the board of directors. Elkann himself has expressed his full support for Filosa, praising his “deep knowledge of the group, its human resources and the challenges of the automotive sector.”
Who is Antonio Filosa? The story behind his rise to Stellantis CEO
Born in Naples in 1973, Antonio Filosa boasts a solid connection with his Italian origins, while having built a managerial career at an international level. He spent part of his childhood and adolescence in Puglia, before finding his path during his university studies. The foundation of Filosa’s success, in fact, lies in his high-profile academic training. Having graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan, he subsequently expanded his managerial skills with an Executive MBA at the Dom Cabral Foundation in Nova Lima, Brazil, among the most renowned business schools in South America.
The combination of technical skills and strategic vision has been a strength in his professional rise. Filosa has indeed managed, progressively, to conquer increasingly strategic roles in the automotive field, until reaching the top of one of the world’s major automotive groups. He started at Fiat back in 1999, in Turin, as an intern for internal management development, then dealing with purchasing activities in the Latin America area.
Filosa’s success, moreover, is directly linked to Brazil. Here he started as purchasing manager for Fiat in Betim, in the state of Minas Gerais, in 2005, and never lost contact with Brazilian activities, holding various positions. Remaining, essentially, his entire life tied to the Italian giant, he spent little time working in Italy, which would later give him the global profile that Stellantis‘ board of directors was looking for to face the multinational’s challenges.
During the second half of the 2000s, in fact, Filosa took on positions of increasing responsibility abroad. He became head of Fiat Chrysler’s industrial and commercial operations in Argentina between 2016 and 2018, then director of the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands for Latin America. As Chief Operating Officer (COO) for FCA’s Latin America region, Filosa helped bring Fiat back to market leadership and strengthen the Peugeot, Citroen, Ram and Jeep brands in the area.
A member of the FCA Group Executive Council since 2018, with the birth of Stellantis in 2021, Filosa became part of the global Top Executive Team. In 2023 he was the first Italian to lead Jeep as global CEO, relaunching the brand both in the United States and Europe. Only in December 2024 he had been appointed COO for the Americas, with the task of reorganizing operations in the United States and strengthening the group’s presence in a strategic market.
Despite his notoriety in the automotive sector, Antonio Filosa has always chosen to maintain an extremely reserved profile on a personal level. It is known that he is married to a Brazilian architect and has two children. The 52-year-old’s discretion is also reflected in his managerial style: pragmatic, concrete, results-oriented, but without too much media exposure. Today he lives in the United States, in the state of Michigan, a nerve center of the automotive industry and strategic headquarters for the sector’s industry.
