 Mr. Krueger
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 Ms. Maier
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SINGAPORE - From 1 July 2004, Mr. Roland Krueger, 38, will take over the position as Managing Director of BMW Asia Pte Ltd in Singapore, the regional corporate office of the BMW Group in Asia.
The current Managing Director, Ms Birgit Maier, has been promoted to Vice-President, Merchandising and Lifestyle based in Munich, responsible for the BMW Group's worldwide activities in this field. |
BMW Asia currently has a staff of about 50 employees and two main areas of responsibility. Firstly, it has the role of managing BMW Group importers and identifying future markets. Secondly, it supports BMW subsidiaries in certain functions such as purchasing, financial services, direct sales and special vehicles, merchandising and lifestyle sales, as well as corporate affairs. Since its formation in 1985, BMW Asia was also instrumental in helping to identify and establish new BMW sales subsidiaries in important Asian markets like Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.
Mr. Krueger is ideal as the new Managing Director of BMW Asia as he spent the last 4 years in the department that oversees all of the BMW Group's sales and marketing activities in Asia, as well as markets in Africa, Middle-East and Eastern Europe. Mr Krueger holds a diploma in industrial and transportation design from the University of Applied Science in Munich. He worked as a car designer for other companies before obtaining his MBA from INSEAD and subsequently joined BMW Group in 1998 as a product manager in the central marketing department.
On his posting, Mr. Krueger said: "I am really looking forward to my new responsibility in Singapore. With its central location in Asia, the world's most dynamic economic region, BMW Asia is well placed to further contribute to the growing success of the BMW Group in Asia. "
In the past 2 years, Ms Maier has laid a solid platform for the continued commitment of the BMW Asia corporate office in Singapore and the expansion into new emerging markets. BMW Asia moved into a new 12,0000 ft office on 22 March 2004, thus providing room for new BMW staff from corporate auditing, corporate security and dealer development to be based in Singapore. The new office is nearly double the size of the previous office and BMW Asia also holds an option to expand it further.
In the region, new BMW importers were appointed in Bangladesh and Nepal last year, with Mongolia scheduled to have a new BMW importer by year-end. New records were also set in existing markets. For example, the 7 Series is the leader in its segment in Singapore for the 2nd year running with nearly 1000 units sold in 2002 and 2003 altogether. In the first quarter of 2004, sales of the BMW Group in Singapore more than doubled to 762 units.
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