Dieter Zetsche
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Dr. Dieter Zetsche (also known as Dr. Z) is the Chairman of DaimlerChrysler. He was born on May 5, 1953 in Istanbul, Turkey, where his father was employed in the construction of bridges. The family returned to Germany in 1956. Zetsche first joined Daimler-Benz in 1976. He became a member of the board in 1998, and on January 1, 2006, succeeded Jürgen Schrempp as Chairman.
He attended school in Oberursel (near Frankfurt am Main) and studied electrical engineering from 1971 to 1976 at the University of Karlsruhe; he graduated as an engineer. Afterwards, he joined Daimler-Benz, working in the research department. In 1981, he became Assistant Development Manager at the Vehicles business unit. He completed his doctorate in engineering in 1982 at the Technical University of Paderborn. He was the main influence behind the merger between Chrysler and Daimler-Benz to form DaimlerChrysler.
Zetsche was named to Time Magazine's 2006's list of 100 most influential people.
In July 2006, he became the DaimlerChrysler spokesman for a series of United States and Canadian television commercials,[1] also animated in cartoon format on the company's Ask Dr. Z website. In the "Ask Dr. Z" ad campaign he provides answers to customers' questions and exits with by saying "Auf Wiedersehen" (German for "See you later"). This is the second time that Chrysler has had a concerted ad campaign centered on its CEO, the last one being the "If you can find a better car, buy it" campaign centered on Lee Iacocca. After 3 months however DaimlerChrysler hurriedly withdrew the Dr. Z campaign due to a significant loss in market-share.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Clark, Andrew. "Svengali-like Dr Z - the unlikely star of Daimler's TV ad campaign in US. " The Guardian. Accessed on 11 August, 2006.
