Ex-Burberry Executive Hired As New Tesla Motors Sales Chief
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Tesla Motors recently decided to snap up the former Burberry senior vice president Ganesh Srivats, interestingly — installing the executive as the company’s new vice president for North American sales. (Tip of the hat to “bonnie” on the Tesla Motors Club forum for the info.)
An interesting choice, huh? A former fashion company executive… Hmm. Given Tesla’s positioning as a luxury brand of sorts, the move does seem to have some sense to it — presumably, the aim is to build on the company’s already solid reputation to become even more of a status symbol than it already is?
The move — which was confirmed last Thursday by Bloomberg — will reportedly help the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer “deepen its already formidable brand into a premium lifestyle experience to go with its high-tech image, taking a cue from the kind of marketing BMW, Porsche and Ferrari have done.”
“This makes all the sense in the world,” noted Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, in an interview with Bloomberg. “Tesla is not an automobile company, it’s a luxury company.”
The position is a new one for the company, created following the reassignment of the former Vice President of global sales and service to a different area of focus, and the splitting of sales managers into different regional sections.
As an interesting note here, the tech giant Apple recently (somewhat recently anyways, in 2013) hired the former Burberry Group Plc CEO, Angela Ahrendts, for a sales/retail position as well. Presumably, this was related to the run-up to the release of the iWatch — which was marketed in various iterations, some of which were intended as quite expensive luxury items.
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