Kia announced on Tuesday (26 April) the appointment of Oliver Sampson, a designer with design experience at Mercedes-Benz and Nio, as head of Kia's European Design Centre, and Seung-Mo Lim, formerly of BMW and Geely Motors, as head of Kia China Design. They will take up their positions on Monday, 1 April.
As Head of Kia's European Design Centre, Oliver Sampson leads the development of the next generation of interior and exterior designs that embody Kia's design philosophy, Offerit United, and contributes to Kia's design edge in a rapidly changing global automotive industry.
Oliver Sampson has worked as an automotive designer since 2003 and has been responsible for design projects on numerous vehicles. He joined Hyundai-Kia as an exterior designer at the Hyundai-Kia European Design Centre in 2003, working on projects such as the Hyundai i20 and the Kia Seed show car. In 2007, he moved to Mercedes-Benz, where he led the design development of the EQ Silver Arrow, the Maybach SIX Coupe, the A-class saloon, the Vision AMG GT6 and the F015.
Since 2018, he has been in charge of exterior design for Nio, a Chinese electric vehicle company, working on projects such as ET5/ET7 and EC6. In 2022, he became the head of the Innovation Design Platform at Chang'an Automobile, where he was responsible for a number of design projects.
As Head of Design for Kia China, Seung-Mo Lim is responsible for creating a customised design strategy for China and developing progressive and innovative designs.
Seungmo Lim studied Fine Arts at Hongik University, Department of Industrial Design, and holds a Master's degree in Transport Design from the University of Potsdam, Germany. Since 2010, he has worked for the BMW Group in the exterior design department on projects such as the BMW i4, Series 4, Vision Next 100 and 235i Racing.
In 2022, he led the design project for a new electric vehicle brand as the exterior design manager of Didi Chuxing in China, and in 2023, he became the innovation design leader of Geely Motor, leading the design development of various models from pre-production to mass production.
"I am delighted to have the opportunity to join Kia at a time of significant change in the mobility industry," said Oliver Sampson, Managing Director, "I look forward to working with Kia's talented designers to enhance the design development capabilities and increase the value of Kia's designs."
"Under Kia's progressive design philosophy, we will do our best to enhance our design competitiveness in the future," said Seung-Mo Lim, President of Kia China Design.
"With the addition of these two outstanding design talents, Kia Design will be even more competitive in design," said Karim Habib, Vice President of Kia Global Design, who oversees Kia's design development. "We will continue to deliver innovative designs for the future under our design philosophy of Offerit United."
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