Career
De Meo began his career at Renault's regional sales in Italy in 1992. He transferred to Renault's Paris headquarters in 1994 to work with the marketing team. In 1998, he joined Toyota Europe where he became chief of product strategy in 2000. [9]
In 2002, de Meo joined the group Fiat Group, where he was Head of Business Units of the brand Lancia, [10] before he was appointed by Sergio Marchionne as CEO of Fiat Automobiles and later of Alfa Romeo. He also served as Chief Marketing Officer of Fiat Group from 2007 to 2009. [5] He was also the CEO of Abarth. [11] During his time at Fiat, de Meo led the Fiat 500 project and revived the Abarth brand. [12] [13] The re-launch of Fiat 500 in 2007 is usually attributed to him. The success of its revival also tends to be accredited to de Meo. The model is considered to be the one that 'saved' Fiat. [14] [15] He resigned from his positions at the group Fiat in January 2009. [16]
In August 2009, he was appointed marketing and sales director of passenger cars for the group Volkswagen. [17] He also held the positions of board of management member for sales and marketing at Audi AG, member of the supervisory boards of Ducati and Lamborghini, and Chairman of the board of the group Volkswagen in Italy and Spain. [18] [19] In the midst of the 2015 Dieselgate, Volkswagen appointed de Meo CEO of SEAT to revive sales as other brands of the group were embroiled in the crisis. [20] De Meo spent four years developing Volkswagen's brand, to make it reach a high operating profit in 2017. [21] That year, SEAT increased its operating profit by 24.8% and delivered 468,400 cars. In 2018, that growth was sustained and further increased by 23.1%. [21] [22] He also expanded the brand in Latin America. [23] In 2019, SEAT registered its 'historical' sales record, with over 574,000 sold cars. [24] 2019 was also the year when de Meo introduced the new Leon. [22] Under his presidency, the brand entered the SUV category, with the models Ateca, Arona and Tarraco. [25] He also launched the Cupra brand, with the first model being a sports SUV: the Cupra Formentor. [26] Cupra is the brand that helped SEAT return to profitability. [27] [28] [29]
In January 2020, he was appointed CEO of Renault (effective July 2020), tasked to put group back on track after the turbulent post-Ghosn era. [30] [31] In January 2021, de Meo presented "Renaulution", a cost-reducing plan to turn "a car company working with tech into a tech company working with cars", focused on brand enhancement, full adoption of EV technologies and new mobility habits. [32] [33] In 2022, it was announced that Renault Group started to witness a financial improvement and de Meo managed to turn around the company in 18 months. [34] Accordingly, better financial results for 2021 were released, they included a 6% increase in revenues and a net profit approaching one billion (€967 million). [35] In November 2022, on the occasion of Renault Group's "Capital Market Day", [36] he announced a reorganization of the Group into five divisions, including Ampere, a subsidiairy dedicated to electric cars. [37] [38] [39] In January 2022, de Meo officially announced the construction of the future electric SUV at the Alpine factory in Dieppe. [40] [41] De Meo intends to occupy the high-segment with this brand. [42] In January 2023, de Meo completed the first phase of his "Renaulution" program in less than two years. [43] In 2023, de Meo's strategy was bringing about results as Renault's operating margin increased to 5.6% for the past year, compared to only 2.8% in 2021. [44] When he first joined Renault Group, the company was losing €8 billion. [45] [46] Two and a half years later, de Meo managed to make the Group witness a financial recovery. [45] De Meo aims at making Renault become a 100% electric brand by 2030 in Europe. [47] [48] His goal was to become carbon-neutral in Europe by 2040 and worldwide by 2050. [49] In February 2023, he introduced a plan for the production of Renault electric vehicles in France. [50] In 2023, he unveiled the new Formula 1 single-seater Alpine in London. [51] That same year, it was announced that Alpine is currently in talks with AutoNation, a US distributor. [52] In the sports segment, Alpine grew by 33% in 2022. [53] [54] In June 2025, De Meo left his position as CEO of Renault Group. [55] [56]
De Meo's exit from Renault coincided with his appointment as CEO of Kering (Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta) effective September 2025, a crossover from the automotive to the luxury sector. [57] [58] Kering shareholders approved the appointment by 98%. [59] Immediate plans included an audit of the group's retail network in view of downsizing, and reducing Kering's financial dependency on Gucci. [60] He sold Kering's beauty division (including fragrance brand Creed) to L'Oréal for 4 billion euros, [61] and appointed Francesca Belletini CEO of Gucci. [62]
