Robin Page has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Design at Volvo Cars, succeeding Thomas Ingenlath who has taken on a new role as Chief Executive Officer at Volvo’s performance car arm, Polestar. Both start their respective new positions on July 1, 2017.
“I am really excited to take up the challenge of establishing this exciting brand, developing a fabulous portfolio of bespoke products and channeling the passion we have throughout the Polestar team,” Ingenlath said in a statement. “The next chapter in Polestar’s history is just beginning.”
Wholly acquired by Volvo in July 2015, Polestar is now set to become its own spin-off brand rather than a performance derivative of an existing Volvo product — though the company says optimization packages for Volvo’s range of cars will continue under the Polestar Engineered brand.
This new development clears the way for Robin Page, who has been Volvo Cars’ head of interior design for the past four years. Since his appointment in 2013 he has spearheaded the company’s simple and pure, yet premium Scandinavian-inspired design aesthetic. His first assignment was the Concept Coupe interior (pictured above), which was followed by the Concept XC Coupe and the Concept Estate. The concept car trilogy previewed the range-topping XC90 SUV and set the tone for all current Volvo interiors.
Page will now take over Volvo Cars’ design operations while Tisha Johnson — current senior director of design at Volvo Car Group’s Concept and Monitoring Center in California — steps into his former role as head of interior design. Johnson has been responsible for all activities at the satellite design center since 2015, where she’s been leading a team of exterior, UI and interior designers in strategic and near-term design proposals.
Maximilian Missoni remains head of exterior design, a position he was appointed to in 2013.
Prior to joining Volvo as head of interior design in 2013, English-born Page was responsible for interior design at Bentley, where he worked on the Continental, Continental Flying Spur and Mulsanne interiors as well as the EXP 9F SUV concept. Besides his experience at Bentley, Page, a Royal College of Art graduate, also worked for Rolls-Royce and Bugatti following an apprenticeship with Jaguar and designed the interior of the British State Limousine used by Queen Elizabeth II.
