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About Lotus Dany Bahar
Bahar was Red Bull’s Chief Operating Officer from 2003 to 2007, where he oversaw and was responsible for the overall corporate business development with emphasis on marketing, sales and events. While there, he developed the two-prong F1 entry strategy with Red Bull Racing (formerly Team Jaguar) and the establishment of Scuderia Toro Rosso (Red Bull Racing is the “A-team”, and Toro Rosso is designed to develop new drivers).
He set-up the departments for both teams, including the hiring of key personnel, and developed the commercial and marketing strategy and activities for both entities, by introducing paddock hospitality areas for key clients, and Formula Unas to boost excitement of F1. He holds an MBA from MC Institute of Vevey/Lausanne.
From 2007 to 2009, he was the senior vice-president of the Sales, Marketing and Communications department for Ferrari SpA. His activities at Ferrari included Launching flagship stores to highlight the brand attributes and to providing the customer with a 360 degree Ferrari experience; introducing the Ferrari Artelier (an area within flagship stores where customers can feel and experience the type of customisation offered); organising a structured programme for owners to experience their products, including driving schools, weekend drives, test drives and several racing series; introducing “A Night With F1” whereby 25 most loyal Ferrari customers are invited to dine with the Ferrari F1 team; boosting the merchandising business by 70% and Launching financial services for Ferrari; providing customers with financing options for their cars.
Presently, Dany Bahar is the CEO of Group Lotus.
Lotus Dany Bahar Links
About Group Lotus
Lotus Cars is a British manufacturer of sports and racing cars based at the former site of RAF Hethel, a World War II airfield in Norfolk. The company designs and builds race and production automobiles of light weight and fine handling characteristics. Lotus is owned by Proton who took over after the bankruptcy of former owner Romano Artioli in 1994.
The company was formed as Lotus Engineering Ltd. by engineer Colin Chapman, a graduate of University College, London, in 1952. The first factory was in old stables behind the Railway Hotel in Hornsey, North London. Team Lotus, which was split off from Lotus Engineering in 1954, was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994. The Lotus Group of Companies was formed in 1959. This was made up of Lotus Cars Limited and Lotus Components Limited which focused on road cars and customer competition car production respectively. Lotus Components Limited became Lotus Racing Limited in 1971 but the newly renamed entity ceased operation in the same year.
The company moved to a purpose built factory at Cheshunt in 1959 and since 1966 the company has occupied a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham. This site is the former RAF Hethel base and the test track uses sections of the old runway.
Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 54, having begun life an innkeeper's son and ended a multi-millionaire industrialist in post-war Britain. The car maker built tens of thousands of successful racing and road cars and won the Formula One World Championshipseven times. At the time of his death he was linked with the DeLorean scandal over the use of government subsidies for the production of the DeLorean DMC-12 for which Lotus had designed the chassis.
In 1986, the company was bought by General Motors. On 27 August 1993, GM sold the company, for £30 million, to A.C.B.N. Holdings S.A. of Luxembourg, a company controlled by Italian businessman Romano Artioli, who also owned Bugatti Automobili SpA. In 1996, a majority share in Lotus was sold to Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional Bhd (Proton), a Malaysian car company listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.
The company also acts as an engineering consultancy, providing engineering development—particularly of suspension—for other car manufacturers. The lesser known Powertrain department is responsible for the design and development of the 4-cylinder Ecotec engine found in many of GM's Vauxhall, Opel, Saab, Chevrolet and Saturn cars. Today, the current Lotus Elise and Exige models use the 1.8L VVTL-i I4 from Toyota's late Celica GT-S and the Matrix XRS.
The company is organised as Group Lotus, which is divided into Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering.
Michael Kimberley took over as Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Company and its Group from May 2006. He currently chairs the Executive Committee of Lotus Group International Limited ("LGIL") established in February 2006, with Syed Zainal Abidin (Managing Director of Proton Holdings Berhad) and Badrul Feisal (non-executive director of Proton Holdings Berhad). LGIL is the holding company of Lotus Group Plc.
Kimberley retired as CEO on 17 July 2009 and was replaced as CEO by Dany T Bahar on 1 October 2009. Bahar was formerly Senior Vice President, Commercial & Brand for Ferrari SpA where he was responsible for worldwide road car sales and after sales business, overall road car and F1 marketing activities, licensing, and merchandising business.
The four letters in the middle of the logo stand for the initials of Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman.