Apotheosis

CEO Andy Palmer discusses Aston Martin’s rebirth.

- Matt Zuchowski

Here’s a tricky thing: Aston Martin is one of the most respected names in the automotive business and one of the coolest brands in the history of Great Britain. Even with that said, of the last 103 years of the company’s history, it has been an underperformer for, well, 103 years. Losing money and lagging behind competitors, Aston Martin could never exploit its full potential. But the company has brought in a special agent to change this state of things. His name’s Palmer—Andy Palmer. The resolute Brit spent most of his 53 years climbing up the corporate ladder to become one of the key strategists at Nissan, but the challenge he took up in the fall of 2014 may be even greater than co-managing one of the biggest car companies in the world. He’s at Aston Martin to do what no one has done before: making this company strong.

Andy describes why all of the previous management just couldn’t cut it: “Over the years, the brand has had multiple owners who treated it as an ego purchase. They made investments in one car, made that one car. It did very well but had nothing to follow it. The brand lived a sinuous curve and at the time more new product was needed; it was simply not generating enough revenue to invest in new cars. In this industry, to be successful, it’s all about the tempo, constantly upgrading your product. That’s the state we need to get to.”

Even before his second work anniversary in Gaydon, he’s already made significant steps to fulfill his promise. “Where we are now—I think is the end of the beginning. The plan has been running for about 18 months and essentially it is broken up into three major phases until 2021. We call it: The Second Century Plan.”