Mark Russell (L) will retire in January 2023 as CEO of Nikola Corp. He will be succeeded by Michael Lohscheller, who has been president of Nikola Motors since February. (Photos: Nikola)
Veteran automotive executive Michael Lohscheller was Nikola Corp. Chairman Steve Girsky’s pick to run Opel when Girsky was vice chairman of General Motors. On Wednesday, he did it again, elevating Lohscheller to the top job at Nikola from president of Nikola Motors.
The succession plan began when Girsky recruited Lohscheller to the president role in February. He worked under current CEO Mark Russell, who will retire. Lohscheller becomes corporate president and joins the company’s board of directors immediately. He takes over as CEO when Russell retires in January.
Russell will retain his board seat. He is Nikola’s largest individual shareholder with about 12% of company stock.
Nikola recovery from scandal
Nikola is delivering battery-electric trucks to customers, something that seemed unlikely during a turbulent time in late 2020 and early 2021.
Milton’s recruit
Recruited to Nikola by Milton, Russell became CEO when the SPAC merger closed. He receives credit for milestones including:
Nikola adjourned its annual meeting an unprecedented three times and hired a proxy solicitation firm to chase down enough votes to pass the measure that will allow Nikola to raise capital through future share sales and other financial arrangements.
Standing uprightat Nikola
Lohscheller kept the plant development and truck production on track while Russell tended to crisis resolution, including agreeing to pay a $125 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission that extricated the company from Milton’s troubles. Milton’s SEC civil trial was put on hold until the conclusion of the criminal trial.
As CEO of Opel, Lohscheller led the company to sustainable profitability and oversaw its transformation into a leading electrified car brand. More recently, he helmed Vietnamese electric car startup VinFast.
Lohscheller also served as executive vice president and CFO at Mitsubishi Motors Europe and Volkswagen Group of America.
“I spent so much time in Europe transforming large companies to zero-emission ability,” he said in a media roundtable in May at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo. “It’s very hard. You try to explain to 30,000 people that electrification is the future. And they’re like, ‘Really?’ Here, with Nikola, everybody is focused on zero-emissions trucks. How great is this?”
At 6-foot-8, Lohscheller may be the tallest executive in the trucking industry. He is a good advertisement for the spaciousness of the Tre, standing upright in the cab with headroom to spare. In the Nikola display at the ACT Expo, Lohscheller showed photographic evidence with a wide grin.
