Oliver Zipse is bowing out after seven successful years in charge of BMW; what’s his secret?
Outgoing BMW chief Oliver Zipse has never reached the superstar league of CEOs in terms of visibility, quotability or any of the metrics that make for a colourful story in the seven years he’s been in charge.
But there’s no questioning his effectiveness. Amid a sea of industry red ink from 2025 financial results, BMW sailed serenely into headwinds such as falling Chinese sales, US tariffs and wild swings in EV take-up to record a group margin of 7.7% from profits of more than €7 billion (£6bn).
In the annual results call to journalists, the former production head batted away a question asking him to personally reflect on his time at the helm.
But on the investor call, Zipse surprised by briefly opening up on the secret of his success.
One analyst wondered whether it was because Zipse wasn’t afraid to be “anti-consensual” – for example, waiting until now to launch a full-EV platform with separate models.
Zipse said: “I regard being anti-consensual as a compliment. To be consensual is probably the first mistake… if you want to compete in pretty high-level competition in our industry.”
His words will ring horribly true to an industry that has needlessly burned through billions in the past five years, believing that copying Tesla was the way to unlock future profits.
Then Zipse engaged with the second part of the question: what advice would he give his successor, current production head Milan Nedeljković, who starts in May?
Essentially Zipse offered no advice, as Nedeljković is already plugged into the BMW management hive mind.
“Probably you won’t even feel that there is a change because he has been with us all along,” said Zipse.
“Individual people do not make a big difference in our strategy because our strategy is built up of a close negotiation… with top leadership. It’s not a top-down issue.”
Zipse and his team have made BMW “anti-fragile”, he said, offering the widest range of drivetrains to assign the right ones to the right markets and ensure full global appeal.
Now it’s up to Nedeljković (and team of course) to chart the third and most critical phase of BMW’s EV strategy: Neue Klasse, starting with the iX3.
We’re expecting more of the same in management style, but if Nedeljković did fancy chatting to us about the thorny issue of the Oxford Mini factory, he’d be warmly welcomed.
