Lotus has appointed Mark Stringer as the new commercial director of Lotus Engineering, the consultancy division of the business. Stringer has more than 20 years of front-line leadership experience across commercial, corporate, strategic, technical and operational engineering environments and is currently in his second term with Lotus, having rejoined the business from Aston Martin in 2018.
Most recently Stringer served as director of corporate planning at Lotus, and prior to that was director of programme management. Stringer leads the strategic planning and delivery of projects for a wide range of OEM and supplier clients across the automotive industry and beyond, including the ongoing collaboration between Lotus and Alpine. He was previously employed at Lotus from 2002-2005 as a senior project engineer within the consultancy.
“I’m delighted to be leading Lotus Engineering at this pivotal point in the transformation of the whole Lotus business and brand, and also at such a fascinating time for the industry, as technology and innovation drives new mobility and propulsion solutions across all sectors,” commented Stringer.
Stringer will play a key role in the growth and commercial success of Lotus Engineering, which was officially established as a separate business division in 1980. The consultancy is a key pillar of Vision80, the strategic plan which is guiding the transformation of Lotus as it moves towards its 80th anniversary in 2028. Lotus Engineering’s headquarters are at the Lotus Advanced Technology Centre (LATC), part of the Wellesbourne Campus of the UK’s University of Warwick.
A key element of Lotus Engineering’s strategy is the commercial opportunity presented by Lotus’ four all-new proprietary vehicle architectures. Three of these platforms are dedicated purely to EVs – the Hypercar, Premium and Sports Car architectures – while the fourth provides the basis for the Lotus Emira ‘hyper SUV’. The lightweight bonded extruded aluminium ‘legacy’ platform, on which the Elise, Exige and Evora were built, is also available to clients.
Priorities for Stringer and his team include using all architectures to grow the whole-vehicle engineering business, while also creating a fresh focus on deploying advanced technologies in design and concept engineering, control systems, product attributes and propulsion across multiple mobility sectors.
“As the automotive industry shifts its focus to the opportunities and challenges of an all-electric future, Lotus Engineering is perfectly placed to capitalise on more than four decades of experience and success. Using our three new full EV platforms, plus the Emira and legacy architectures, we can enable businesses to realise their product aspirations through an accelerated timescale and with reduced investment, explained Stringer.
