Versace heading Pirelli’s commercial tyre business in Germany

The company established in 2015 to distribute Pirelli commercial tyres in Germany has announced the appointment of its second chief executive officer within the space of just two months. The job now belongs to Alain Versace, who succeeded Ralf Schnelle earlier this month.

Schnelle was appointed to head TP Industrial Deutschland GmbH in the latter part of 2016, taking over from acting managing director Frank J. Delesen, who held the position on a temporary basis following Manfred Zoni’s departure in October. Pirelli confirms that Schnelle left the company due to “personal reasons” on 9 January after holding his new position for only a couple of weeks, and the job of chief executive officer has been taken on by Alain Versace.

As chief executive officer of TP Industrial Deutschland GmbH, Versace reports to Murat Akyildiz, Pirelli Industrial’s chief executive officer for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He rejoined Pirelli’s commercial vehicle tyre business in November 2016 as services, solutions and retread manager at Pirelli Industrial; Versace previously spent more than five years at Pirelli before taking on a tyre-related job at Schmitz Cargobull in January 2014.