► Luca de Meo to leave Renault Group
► He held CEO position for five years
► Laurens van den Acker weighs in on the future
It was only shortly before it was announced to the world when Renault’s design director Laurens van den Acker received news of an urgent leadership call. He would be told of Renault CEO Luca de Meo’s shock departure.
‘I thought it [the call] would be for something else’, admits van den Acker, who has been part of Renault’s design team since 2009, and has served as the Group’s design director since 2023.
Having served under five CEOs at Renault, change isn’t new for the company, but following up de Meo’s outstanding half a decade will be a challenge. As the instigator of the Renaulution, he pushed forward the Renault 5 and 4 as a way of reinventing a somewhat stale brand and has made Dacia the brand it is today. Both are now in a completely different place and are thriving.
But despite de Meo leaving Renault on July 15 for pastures completely new, van den Acker tells us his story at the firm is far from over.
‘There’s more to come from Luca’s Renault. The Twingo will come, the Clio will come, some new Dacias will come. Our product plan for the next few years has already been done
‘What I’m working on now is 2028, 2029, 2030. So, very often if there is a crisis, I say the crisis has already passed. In my role in 2028 the sun is shining, the summer is good, this is way behind us.’
The Dutch design director draws comparisons between Renault and its leadership to Liverpool and its former manager Jurgen Klopp.
‘If I compare it to football, Klopp only managed in a short time but lit a fire in the brand [Liverpool]. Luca made everyone enthusiastic inside the company and outside the company, but he left behind a very good team.
We’ve grown as a management team, we’re not in the same place we were five years ago clearly and I’m an optimist and if I look forward and we can do to Liverpool what Klopp did when he left then we will be doing well.’
Van den Acker clearly has much respect for de Meo and his appreciation for good design, but admits ‘he pushed us like crazy’. It’s a move that has undoubtedly paid off. The new Renault 5’s incredible design is already translating into sales – in April and May 2025 it has been the UK’s most popular electric car for retail – and it’s expected the Renault 4 arriving in dealers shortly will do similar.
‘We were losing considerable amounts of money per day [before Luca joined], we were definitely the weakest kid in the class.
‘We took a lot of hard decisions four or five years ago. The successes today is not down to what we did last week, and this is important to realise. The success in three years time will be linked to the decisions we took today.’
Despite van den Acker’s optimism, though, he’s not naive to the challenges that a new CEO brings.
‘We will again have everything to prove [with the new CEO]. People expect us to lose the momentum, and I think we are all very aware of needing to keep up the momentum because the worst thing you can do is to stop everything. We keep going.’
But Luca de Meo’s departure, as much of a shock as it may be, is not completely out of the ordinary. He did similar at Seat between 2015 and 2020, establishing the Cupra brand, which continues to grow each year, but not sticking around to see it flourish.
Instead, his philosophy seem to be to get the brand back on track and then move on seems to, and one he is now looking to replicate at his next employer, struggling luxury group Kering, the parent company of firms such as Gucci and Balenciaga.
‘In any normal situation, he would have left the building straight away, because if he had gone to a competitor, he wouldn’t work for you any more’, says van den Acker. ‘But because he’s leaving for another industry, they made a deal that he leaves on the 15th July, which is quite unique.’
And as for the next Renault boss? Unsurprisingly van den Acker doesn’t want to speculate but says that ‘recruiting from within is an option’, but they’re looking outside as well. He’s very quick to rule himself out of stepping into Luca de Meo’s shoes.
Senior staff writer, car reviewer, news hound, avid car detailer.
By Ted Welford
Senior staff writer at CAR and our sister website Parkers. Loves a car auction. Enjoys making things shiny
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