Mazda Motor Corporation has announced the appointment of Laurens van den Acker as General Manager of the Design Division. He will take over from Moray Callum and assume responsibility for the overall design of all Mazda global products, based at the company's world headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan. Moray Callum will now move back to Ford Motor Company's design offices in Dearborn, Michigan, where he was previously based.

Until recently, van den Acker was the Chief Designer, Strategic Design, for Ford in Dearborn. From 1998-2005, he held several prominent design positions at Ford, among them chief designer of the Brand Imaging Group in Irvine, California and, more recently, chief designer for the Ford Escape platform.

Notable cars which van den Acker has worked on include the Ford Bronco, Ford 427, Model U, 24/7 and Ford GloCar concept vehicles, as well as the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner production cars. Before joining Ford, van den Acker also worked for Volvo, SHR Perceptual Management and Audi AG. He began his career as a lead designer at Design System srl in Turin, Italy, in 1990.

Laurens van den Acker is 40 years old and graduated from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1990 with a Master of Engineering degree from the Faculty of Industrial Design. He is fluent in Dutch, German, English and Italian.

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