Torsten Müller-Ötvös

Spear's Review

Torsten Müller-Ötvös joined BMW at the age of 29 and has remained at the group ever since, becoming CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in 2010.

The daring and exquisite Phantom had already been developed, lifting Rolls-Royce away from the dowdy designs of the eighties and nineties, and Müller-Ötvös has continued to grow the company, achieving record sales of more than 6,000 cars in 2022.

He told Spear’s: ‘When I turned up here it was already running well. It sold around 1,000 cars per year but was obviously seen as another automotive brand. When I joined, I held lots of interviews with private banks worldwide to find out what happens to ultra high net worth individuals over time. It was extremely enlightening, even provocative for us because one clear idea was that if we didn’t change then we were going to lose all our potential clients in the future. They were getting far younger, more informal, more relaxed.

‘We changed the product strategy into products like Wraith, Dawn, Cullinan, Black Badge [the radically styled, more powerful versions of existing models that now accounts for almost 40 per cent of sales]. Black Badge was a big leader in terms of attracting very young clients, that made a big difference over time. It wasn’t something you could do in a moment, you have to do it step by step by step. You have to do it in a very driven, concise way where you have your vision and follow it.

‘This company was seen as the pinnacle of automotive business, we’ve transformed it into a house of luxury. I tell you we’re not in the car business. We aren’t. It’s technically a car because it has four wheels and an engine, but no one buys a Rolls-Royce to go from A to B. All our clients have multiple cars in the garage. I would call it an eclectic piece of art.’

Müller-Ötvös aims to inspire his workforce by showing them respect and taking an interest in the details of what they do without micromanaging. He said of his teams, ‘They think, “apparently the work I’m doing here is important because the boss is interested.” That’s super important. That drives them into thinking that they want to deliver perfection.’