Nielsen New Sales and Marketing Director of BMW Group Middle East

Lars Nielsen has been appointed as the new BMW Sales and Marketing Director of BMW Group Middle East. He will be based at the BMW Group Middle East Regional Office in Dubai, which oversees BMW and MINI business operations across the region, and his appointment is effective April 1^st, 2019. 41-year-old Nielsen took over this role from Dr. Hamid Haqparwar (38) who has become the Managing Director at BMW Group Middle East.

Nielsen’s previous stint was as the Sales and Marketing Director for BMW Group Thailand, where he had worked from January 2015 and was based in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Lars Nielsen is originally from Denmark, and had begun his career with BMW in January 2008, when he joined as the Director of Sales at BMW Group Denmark, and was based in Copenhagen. He moved on from this position to that Area Manager Europe, Market Group North, from January 2012 to December 2014 and was based in Munich, Germany.

Nielsen is a graduate of Copenhagen Business School, and has over 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. He has handled a broad range of functions and markets where he played a key role in delivering both sales growth and brand development, as well as business transformation.

Commenting on Nielsen’s appointment, Dr. Hamid Haqparwar, Managing Director BMW Group Middle East, said that he was delighted to welcome Lars to the Middle East team. He went on to express his confidence that Nielsen’s expertise and experience of handling the BMW Group’s most important sales and marketing divisions would contribute to strengthening BMW’s position across the region.

Thanks to his former role at BMW Group Thailand, Lars has significant expertise related to electrification and this topic is becoming increasingly relevant in the Middle East market.. Another priority for Lars and his team would be to improve BMW’s customer centricity. It would be a huge challenge to bring customer-centricity into the company, but it would also mean that that BMW would be able to cater to the demands from customers and respond to them faster.