Skoda Names VW's Oliver Stefani As Head Of Design

You may not know the name Oliver Stefani, but you probably know his work. As head of exterior design at Volkswagen, he lead the design of vehicles as big as the new Atlas and as small as the Up! Now he's taking on a different challenge, though.

Skoda has picked him up from within the VW group's pool of human resources and named him as the Czech brand's new head of design. Stefani's promotion fills the gap left by the departure of Jozef Kaban, who held the job since 2008 but left for BMW earlier this year.

A graduate of the Braunschweig University of Art in Germany and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Stefani has been with VW since 2002. He started out at the company's European design center in Sitges, Spain, before moving up the ranks of the design department in Wolfsburg.

Stefani helped design the New Beetle and Passat CC, and is credited with leading the design of such models as the current Polo, Jetta, Tiguan, Golf, and all three of the ID concepts.

“Oliver Stefani will instigate the next stage of development,” said Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier. “He will design our cars to have even greater emotional resonance and will lead them into the era of digitalisation and the electrification of vehicle manufacturing.”