Who's Where: Martin Smith to retire, succeeded by Joel Piaskowski as Ford Europe head of design

Martin Smith, head of Ford of Europe design for the last 10 years, will retire at the end of this year, before which he will work on a project to study the future direction of the company's global design direction. He will be replaced by current head of strategic concepts group, Joel Piaskowski on 1 July.

Smith (64) first joined Ford back in 2004, leaving General Motors as director of design for Opel/Vauxhall. He earned a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Liverpool and a Master of Automotive Design at the Royal College of Art in London before taking up his first position at Porsche in 1973. In 1977, he joined Audi where he designed the original Quattro and subsequently headed up the Advanced Design Studio in Munich, which produced the Audi Avus Concept, alongside J Mays.

His last position at Audi was head of Interior Design, overseeing the development of the TT interior. He moved to Opel in 1997 as design director for compact cars, where his assignments included the design of the Opel Speedster and the Astra. In 2002, he became executive design director for Opel/Vauxhall, his work including the Vauxhall VX Lightning and Opel Insignia concepts.

His tenure as head of Ford Europe design will be best remembered for the development of 'Kinetic Design', the form language that was introduced by the 2005 Iosis concept and subsequently developed into the current Mondeo, S-Max and previous Kuga. His team was also responsible for the current global Focus and Fiesta models.

Until his retirement at the end of the year, Smith will work on a project studying the future direction of Ford design globally, alongside Moray Callum, design vice president of Ford.

In his place will step Joel Piaskowski, who will report directly to both Callum and Joe Bakaj, vice president, product development, Ford of Europe.

Born and raised in Michigan, Piaskowski (45) graduated from the College of Creative Studies in 1990 before starting his design career at GM, working on production exterior and interior design for the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Opel/Vauxhall/Holden and Buick brands.

Following his 13 year career at GM, he joined Hyundai and Kia North America as chief designer in 2003 and was responsible for several Hyundai concept models including the HCD8, HCD9 Talus and HCD10 Hellion. He is also credited with leading the teams responsible for creation the highly acclaimed Sonata, Genesis sedan and coupe and the Tuscon SUV. Piaskowski left the Korean automaker in January 2009 after being headhunted by Mercedes-Benz to fill Gordon Wagener's former position at the company's Advanced Design studio in Irvine, California. In October 2010 he joined Ford as director of exterior design at Ford North America, replacing Moray Callum who had been promoted to executive director.

During this time he led the exterior design team in the development of several vehicles, including the Ford Atlas Concept seen at the 2013 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, as well as spending some time in Ford's Asia Pacific studio in Melbourne, Australia.

"Joel's international experience and product versatility are particularly important as we continue to leverage our design talent around the globe to deliver truly world-class products," said Moray Callum, Ford's vice president of design in an official announcement from the company.

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Whos Where: Ford's J Mays retires, Moray Callum succeeds

By Owen Ready