Michiel Mol
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Michiel Mol (born August 4, 1969) is a Dutch businessman and the director of the Force India (formerly Spyker F1) Formula One team.
[edit] Biography
Michiel Mol grew up with a wealthy family. His father, Jan Mol, set up his own software company in 1966 called Volmac; the company itself turned out to be a huge success and Jan Mol sold it in 1992 to CAP Gemini. Jan Mol's fortune is currently estimated at around $500m.[citation needed]
Michiel himself went into the software business, graduating from the University of Leiden in Computer Science. In 1993 Mol set up Lost Boys with several of his friends, developing software for the CD-ROM market. With the rapid growth of the internet, the company then started making internet software as well as moving into game development. Mol had his first venture into Formula One in 1999, when he and his company sponsored driver Jos Verstappen. Lost Boys then merged with Swedish company IconMedialab.
Mol remained on the board and kept the Lost Boys Games division, before establishing a new company called Media Republic, aiming to use new technology to market products. Lost Boys Games was transformed into Guerrilla Games, notable for developing the Playstation 2 game Killzone, during 2004 and a year later it was sold to the Sony Company.
Mol later became a supporter of Christijan Albers, after Verstappen left Formula One, and led a group of investors that put together a deal to buy into Spyker Cars and take over the Midland F1 team. Mol is now a major shareholder in Spyker and in September 2006 was appointed as F1 director of Spyker for a period of four years.
On August 14, 2007, Michiel Mol left Spyker Cars as CEO amid speculation that it and Spyker F1 would be separated due to financial problems.[1] In October 2007 Spyker F1 was sold to Indian businessman Vijay Mallya and renamed Force India.[2] Mol remains as director.
[edit] References
- GP Encyclopedia > People > Michiel Mol GrandPrix.com. Retrieved 31 October 2006
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