Interview
“The future of design will lean heavily on CMF and UX” – Stellantis’ VP CMF Rossella Guasco
CDN caught up with Rossella Guasco to discuss how she maintains brand uniqueness across the nine Stellantis brands through CMF
With nine brands to distinguish, Stellantis’ CMF team face the challenge of creating unique identities from a shared palette of materials and design studios.
Enter VP of CMF Europe, Rossella Guasco, who is the vision-maker for this discipline that is constantly evolving beyond its traditional remit. By implementing the correct structure and practices, Guasco has created a European CMF team that can work seamlessly across brands while carefully implementing key brand specialists to maintain the sanctity of the marque.
It’s clear that Guasco strives to push the practice of CMF into the future, believing the future of design lies in the convergence of CMF and UX, with AI offering new ways to explore ideas and circularity reshaping how components are conceived. Car Design News caught up with Guasco to learn more.
Car Design News: There seems to be a heightened focus on the power of CMF in the industry, how do you feel like the practice of CMF is evolving and how do you balance this across the Stellantis portfolio?
Rossella Guasco: I’d actually like to change the name of CMF to CME. CMF is a little bit out of date – we want the experience. I’m in charge of nine brands and we are located in three different places. Turin in Italy, Vélizy-Villacoublay which is just outside of Paris plus we have a design centre in Rüsselsheim, Germany.
Overall, the CMF Europe team is more or less 60 people. It’s amazing because it’s a blending of different cultures, different backgrounds and different genders – finally a team within design with a strong percentage of women. So, it’s a mix of different approaches and taste diversity. It’s not easy to guarantee the uniqueness of the brands, but it’s a great opportunity that Stellantis gives to us to manage so many different brands.
CDN: So how do you ensure that the CMF make-up of each brand feels different?
RG: We have brands with incredible histories, great roots and values. What’s really amazing is that we are a single team and we start with the same materials, inputs and trends but we interpret it in such different ways because the power of the brand is so strong.
This also comes from the influence of our designers as each of them creates amazing, unique projects with different applications. Sometimes people can presume that because we are one team that we contaminate each other, but this isn’t true. This is actually our strength because we have a lot of synergies that can be profitable for the team which makes us stronger and unique.
We have trends that can be interpreted in such different ways, and we have a dedicated controller for each of our brands and then we have a transversal team focusing on innovation, trend research, intelligence, synergies and efficiency. We have some people that work across brands, but we continue to keep a few people focused on specific brands. We are also strongly connected with the other CMF teams all over the world and make sure that we don’t work in silos. Of course, the distance doesn’t help but it’s fundamental to be connected – to brainstorm, meet and talk.
CDN: When we last spoke to Gilles Vidal, he mentioned that the focus of Stellantis was to create the next generation of icons. CMF must play a huge role in that, how are you pushing CMF ahead to match this ambition?
RG: CMF will become even more important than it is now, and I think the future of design will be CMF and UX. I see these two disciplines growing in the world of design and we are pushing a lot towards this vision. We of course have some common trends because we also need to the popular in the market. Materials that perform, a focus on circularity, the integration of materials and technology as well as smart finishes are very important to us.
We have started to integrate and experiment with AI because it’s important to experiment. The youngest people in the team are particularly interested in these new tools and in some ways they are the pioneers within the team for AI. We are using these tools even more in the beginning phase of our work. If you use AI in the correct way, it can be an incredible tool. It can increase the levels of creativity, it can help to be more connected with the design team in the beginning phase, to anticipate, to work together, to visualise.
CDN: What’s something that’s particularly exciting you in the CMF field currently?
RG: The most interesting challenge is about generating materials – so creating materials from just an idea. Not using the library or observing what our suppliers present but to create my own materials.
CDN: Sustainability is no longer a trendy word in design, it’s expected. How do you see the future of sustainability in CMF?
RG: Sustainability isn’t a trend; it’s part of our life. I like to call it circularity rather than sustainability because there are different levels from just recycled materials. I think now is the moment in car design to move to monomateriality and second life. It’s not easy to apply but we need to work to change this mindset on how we design components, how we design not by layer on layer on layer – but to simplify. It can also be cost effective, probably not at the beginning because any change creates complexity, but in the future it can be.
