Sales and Marketing Executive
Britta Seeger
Board Member responsible for Sales and Marketing, Mercedes-Benz
TITLE: Board Member responsible for Sales and Marketing
COMPANY: Mercedes-Benz
BASED: Stuttgart, Germany
AGE: 53
NATIONALITY: German
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Britta Seeger, a native of Bonn, Germany, studied business administration at the University of Cooperative Education in Stuttgart. She started her career at Mercedes in 1989, holding positions in retail and marketing before being named head of the eBusiness Unit in 2000. Seeger then held management positions within Daimler, including in product management at both Mercedes-Benz cars and the Smart brand. She joined the board of management in 2017. She is currently responsible for sales and marketing for Mercedes-Benz cars.
REASON FOR WINNING
Mercedes-Benz and Seeger have been navigating the transition of its iconic internal combustion lineup to electrification, with the EQ brand, while also managing the disruption of supply chains because of the semiconductor shortage. Mercedes will soon have launched four purpose-built EQ models: The flagship EQS sedan and SUV, and the EQE sedan and SUV. Like many other automakers, sales have fallen as Mercedes has not been able to meet overall demand because of the chip shortage, but in the second quarter of 2022, sales of full-electric vehicles were up by 90 percent over the previous year -- and up 134 percent in the first half. Big sellers were the EQS and the smaller EQA and EQB. Here in Europe, almost one-third of Mercedes’ first-half sales were plug-in models, both full-electric and hybrid.
And despite the lower sales volume, Mercedes still enjoyed higher margins: Second-quarter return on sales in the cars division was 14.2 percent, up from 12.8 percent in the same quarter last year. That has given Mercedes confidence to raise expected adjusted earnings margin in the second half to 12 percent to 14 percent from 11.5 percent to 13 percent previously.