Former BMW M chief heads new Hyundai High Performance division

Hyundai Motor Company has recently appointed Thomas Schemera, the former BMW head on Sales and Marketing, to spearhead their newly-established High Performance Vehicle and Motorsport Division.

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Schemera will take over the Korean brand’s strategy, product planning, sales, as well as marketing capabilities for high performance vehicle operations. This is expected to level up the combined effect between its headquarters and its motorsports arm, Hyundai Motorsport GmbH.

“Thomas Schemera is one of the most renowned experts in the high performance vehicle business with experience in all of the world’s major markets. I am excited he is joining us and I’m confident that his participation will help put Hyundai’s high performance vehicle business onto the fast track.”

Albert Biermann
President and Head of Performance Development and High Performance Vehicle Development at Hyundai Motor Group

To give you a glimpse of his status in the automotive industry, the new Hyundai boss worked as Vice President in Marketing and Driving Experience at BMW M in Germany, as well as BMW Group’s Vice President of Sales and Dealer Development in Mainland and Greater China, where he steered a four-time sales growth in both BMW and BMW M models from 2005 to 2008.

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Moving forward, Hyundai has progressively gaining exposure in the field of high performance vehicles since 2012. Last year, the Korean marque released their N line-up with the i30 N model, followed by the world debut of Veloster N at the North American International Auto Show. They also plan to further expand customer’s choices for fun-to-drive models. With that said, we can safely assume that Hyundai is currently cooking hot and fresh high-performance cars, right?