An Hour With Doctor Zetsche

Daimler’s convention-busting CEO will leave alegacy of innovation in the wake of his imminent departure. We meet him

- Steve Cropley

It’s likely no boss at Daimler will wear a tie to a middle-ranking business meeting again. In 2015, the company’s long-serving, high-achieving CEO, Dr. Dieter Zetsche, gave up neckwear for meetings. His acolytes gratefully followed suit.

Even after four years, people still remark on this apocalyptic change at least as much as they do about the Mercedes CEO’s far more significant corporate achievements. Those include demerging the company from a disastrous Chrysler alliance; changing company culture; surviving the worst of Dieselgate despite a huge recall of Benz models; beating BMW in 2018’s sales; vigorously embracing the new electrification age; and leaving the company in a well-founded and profitable condition, stuffed with ideas to face the future.

Zetsche retires from the group CEO’s role after an eventful 13-year term at the top. He has never commented officially on his neckwear decision but it was clearly intended to signal the start of a new way in the car business; a change of corporate culture. It will be interesting to see whether he can carry his informality into the Daimler ivory tower, having been tipped to take over leadership of the non-executive supervisory board in a couple of years’ time after some well-deserved gardening leave.

His chosen successor, meanwhile – Ola Källenius – who also breaks with Daimler convention by being a non-German yet to celebrate his 50th birthday (he’s Swedish and will reach the half-century only after his appointment) has been photographed open-necked all over the place.