Renault Group boss Luca de Meo has been named the most powerful person in the automotive industry after topping Autocar Business’s Power List 100 rankings for 2023, sponsored by Keyloop.
De Meo has been recognised for his tenacity and business acumen, which have allowed him to drag an ailing Renault Group back to financial competitiveness. When he joined Renault in 2020, it was in one of the deepest financial holes ever faced by a global automotive company after losing €8bn the previous year.
Despite the pressures of the pandemic, de Meo led Renault to scrape a profit in 2021, before doubling it to €2.6bn in 2022 on a margin of 5.6%. While healthy for a large-volume player like Renault, it was in 2023 that the company broke its all-time margin record of 7% with a 7.6%
