Brand’s appointment follows the retirement of Andreas Engling, currently Executive Director of Manufacturing and Chief Executive Officer. He is stepping down after 36 years with the manufacturer.

Andreas Engling began his career at the company as a parts production quality engineer in Stuttgart/Germany in 1987. From 1993 on, Engling held various management positions in Germany, for example, Managing Director of MDC Power/Technology in Kölleda.

In 2017, he took over his current role in South Africa. Under his leadership, MBSA has had many strategic achievements for the East London Plant, for example, the 500 000th Mercedes-Benz W205 C-Class rolling off the production line and exporting several C-Class variants to over eighty markets across the world.

MBSA Executive Director of Manufacturing and CEO designate Andreas Brand, currently Head of Production and Capacity Planning, will take over from Andreas Engling from 1 May 2022.

Andreas Brand joined the company in 1997 as production engineer in the body shop Rastatt. He gained a lot of international management experience, for example through planning functions for the SUVs in Tuscaloosa/USA, and also at the plant in East London.

Thereafter, Andreas Brand held various management positions in planning, production and factory launches. As of 2010, he led the press and body shop in Kecskemét (Hungary). In 2016, he worked in the area of strategic alignment and, in 2018, he was Chief Engineer Production for the Compact Car-Platform.

Since the beginning of 2020, he has been in his current position as head of Program and Capacity Planning.