‘Rising star’ of Stellantis UK quits

The outspoken UK head of the group that owns Vauxhall has abruptly left the company after barely 13 months in the role.
Maria Grazia Davino’s brief stewardship of Stellantis UK was punctuated by sharp criticism of the government of Rishi Sunak, with threats to pull investments in or even close the company’s van assembly factories in Luton and at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.
Davino, 46, had been seen as a rising star within Stellantis, the multinational formed from the pandemic-era merger of two French brands, Peugeot and Citroën, and the Italian-American group Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Vauxhall had been acquired from General Motors, its owner for much of the previous century, by Peugeot-Citroën for a nominal €1 five years ago.
Her departure follows a shake-up of global management by the under-pressure group chief executive Carlos Tavares, who has overseen a crash in sales and a backing-up of unsold inventory as the group struggles to manage the transition to making zero-emission vehicles.
Davino, an Italian who started her career at Fiat, was said by Stellantis on Friday to have left the company to pursue other interests. It is understood that she has been put on gardening leave as she has secured another job elsewhere in the industry.
During her time in the UK her outspoken comments broke the silence of automotive bosses, who are generally unwilling to criticise ministers on whose subsidies they are often dependent. Stellantis/Vauxhall is Britain’s only mainstream van manufacturer.
In her first high-profile outing earlier this year, announcing new investment at the Vivaro van plant in Luton, Davino warned: “While the decision demonstrates Stellantis’s confidence in the plant, this first step in its redevelopment towards a fully electric future requires the UK government to stimulate more demand in the electric vehicle market and support manufacturers that invest in the UK for a sustainable transition.”
She went further this summer: at a major automotive conference in London Tavares called the UK a “hostile environment” to manufacturers such as Stellantis, which had converted Ellesmere Port, formerly the home of the Vauxhall Astra, into Europe’s first all-electric van plant.
Complaining that sales quota targets in the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate were being brought in too steeply and too rapidly and warning that Stellantis could be looking at hundreds of millions of pounds in fines, Davino said there would be “consequences”, telling The Times that “Stellantis UK does not stop, but Stellantis production in the UK could stop”.
Asked to clarify whether that was a threat to close factories that employ 2,000 people, Davino said: “Yes, that is the worst scenario, the extreme consequence … We would consider it and set up our investment differently and in a different country. It is a possible consequence.”
Vauxhall has been in sharp decline in the UK. Sales of the marque’s cars were down 30 per cent for the key month of September, when the number plate changes, and in the year to date Vauxhall’s market share has slumped to just 4 per cent. A decade ago it had a market share well over 10 per cent and was the undisputed second-largest player in the market, after Ford.
Davino’s immediate boss, Jean-Philippe Imparato, the newly appointed chief operating officer of Stellantis Europe, praised her “adept handling of regulatory changes in a disrupted industry”, adding: “Her leadership has made a lasting impact on our UK operations and paved the future.”
Davino is being replaced by Eurig Druce, the Welshman who currently heads the Peugeot brand in the UK.