Who's Where: Christopher Svensson and Joel Piaskowski swap roles at Ford

Ford's Christopher Svensson and Joel Piaskowski have swapped roles, with Svensson becoming exterior design director, The Americas, and Piaskowski director of design, Asia Pacific.

Svensson, who will report directly to Moray Callum, Ford's executive design director, The Americas, is based in the carmaker's Dearborn studio. He oversees the exterior design team responsible for developing new products in the North and South American regions as well as supporting Ford's global design.

"Moving to the US was an easy decision – this is the heart of the company's design operations and the largest of our design studios," he explains. "I'm honored to have the opportunity to lead such a great team and excited about overseeing the direction of the next generation of global products."

Svensson first started working for Ford in 1992 as an exterior designer in its German design studio. Since then, he has held a number of key positions in Europe, North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. He has been credited with concept vehicles such as the Ford Visos, Mercury MC2 and the Ford P2000 Holographic project. He also has worked on projects such as the Ford Ka, Puma, Cougar, Fiesta, Focus, C-Max, Mondeo, Falcon, Taurus and Mustang.

New director of design Joel Piaskowski oversees the design team responsible for developing new products in the Asia Pacific region and is based in Ford's Asia Pacific Design Center in Melbourne, Australia. He reports directly to Martin Smith, executive design director, Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa. He also works closely with Kumar Galhotra, vice president product development, Asia Pacific and Africa, based in Shanghai, China.

Piaskowski joined the company in 2010 as Ford's exterior design director, The Americas, and led the exterior design team in the development of several vehicles, including the Ford Atlas Concept seen earlier this year at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

He says, "The Asia Pacific region is the hot bed in terms of opportunity for an OEM with China being the largest automotive market in the world, with continued signs of growth and prosperity for many years to come.

"The market continuously grows and evolves at a rapid pace making for a very exciting dynamic for how we at Ford design cars for a global audience, yet fulfill many specific regional customer needs. Working together as a global design organization we have the challenge to create cars that customers fall in love with around the globe while staying laser-focused on our Ford design DNA."

By Rufus Thompson