Infiniti Pulls Roland Kruger From BMW To Take the Helm

Long-time BMW executive Roland Kruger has been lured away from the German manufacturer to take the captain's chair at Infiniti.

Roland Kruger has been named as the president of Infiniti and a senior vice president of Nissan Motor to report directly to Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn as the man leading the way at the automaker's premium brand. Kruger joins Infiniti and Nissan with a long history and broad spectrum of experience in premium vehicles thanks to his long career at BMW.

Kruger began his career as an interior designer at Mitsubishi Motors Europe, based in Germany. He was there two years (1992-1994) before joining the Daimler Group as senior designer for interiors on the SMART project. He moved up to the senior position in the Strategic Planning Group before moving to the BMW division.

Kruger was most recently a senior vice president at BMW Group in charge of the German sales region. He joined BMW in 1998 as Manager of Project Planning. He rose through the executive ranks to head Project and Price Planning for Asia-Pacific, Africa and East Europe before heading Regional Market for the area and then becoming managing director of the BMW Group in Asia. In 2008, he was named president and CEO of BMW Group, Japan and then in 2013 to his senior VP position.

Roland Kruger holds multiple a degree in Industrial Design and an MBA acquired from the University of Applied Science in Munich and INSEAD in France, respectively. Kruger takes over for Andrew Palmer, who left Infiniti for Aston Martin in a much-publicized move last month.