JLR CEO Adrian Mardell retires after 35 years at the firm

Adrian Mardell steps down after two years leading the firm, having delivered best profits in 10 years JLR CEO Adrian Mardell is leaving the company after two years at the helm, Autocar can reveal. Mardell was appointed as CEO in 2023 following the sudden departure of Thierry Bolloré, and has led the Jaguar and Land Rover brands through one of the most transformative periods in their respective histories. He is now retiring after 35 years at the company, a JLR spokesperson said in an official statement sent to Autocar India: "Adrian Mardell has expressed his desire to retire from JLR after three years as CEO and 35 years with the company. His successor will be announced in due course.” Mardell has steered the company through a remarkable financial turnaround, with the firm going from heavy losses and huge debt in the wake of the pandemic, to posting its best profit figures for a decade last year. The dramatic change in the company's fortunes was underpinned by the popularity of its highly profitable Defender and Range Rover models, which have put JLR on track to achieve a targeted 10% profit margin by 2026. Mardell has also overseen the formation of JLR's House of Brands retail strategy, under which Defender, Discovery, Range Rover and Jaguar have each been carved out as distinct brands in their own right, with bespoke marketing strategies centred around the positioning of those model families. But arguably the most significant moment of Mardell's tenure as boss was the unveiling of the radical Jaguar Type 00 concept, which marked the beginning of the all-out transformation of the marque from a BMW and Mercedes rival to a purveyor of high-end, high-performance EVs that will do battle with Bentley. The first of these models, a four-door super-GT in the vein of the Porsche Taycan, is now in the final stages of testing ahead of a production-spec unveiling at the end of the year and a launch in summer 2026 - until which time no Jaguar models are being produced. In a recent interview with Autocar, Mardell revealed that he had driven the new GT, and said it was the "most fun I've had" in his time as JLR boss. "It was stunning in terms of its speed, its acceleration, its performance, but also how it delivered the power with a real sense of character. The chassis team are really excited about the possibilities of the vehicle.” Speaking more generally about Jaguar's prospects as an all-electric luxury brand, Mardell said he was "certain we will have wait lists which are significant relative to the volumes we aspire for with the first product”. “In today’s market conditions, I don’t see anything which is going to concern me about the success of the new Jaguar in this new world at all, actually.” Mardell leaves JLR in a position of far greater stability than that it was in when he took the top job, but the company still faces strong headwinds. Chief among those is the imposition of new tariffs on foreign-built cars in the crucial US market, which accounts for a huge proportion of sales of its most profitable models. The UK recently secured a trade deal that reduced the US import tariff on its exported cars from an initially mooted 25% to 10%, which is good news for the Solihull-built Range Rover models and the Halewood-produced Evoque and Discovery Sport. But that levy only applies to the first 100,000 cars shipped to the US in a year, meaning any JLR models shipped above that number are liable to attract the higher 25% fee. Similarly, while the EU has now struck a deal with the US, cars shipped from the region to North America will still attract a 15% tariff, which will have significant implications for the Defender and Discovery, both built in Slovakia. Mardell's eventual replacement will also have to negotiate JLR's inevitable shift to a pure-electric line-up over the coming years, in the face of waning global demand for premium EVs. Only recently it emerged that the long-awaited electric Range Rover, originally planned for showrooms by the end of 2025, had been delayed to next year - in part to allow for demand to pick up. The company has not confirmed a new date for the Range Rover EV, nor said if the electric Jaguar models will still launch on schedule

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