McLaren Automotive
Leadership History
2 leaders · 2022 to present
Nick Collins is the CEO of McLaren Automotive, in the role since 2025. The first chief executive was Michael Leiters, from 2022.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Collins | Chief Executive Officer, McLaren Group Holdings | 2025 | Present | 1 |
| Michael Leiters | Chief Executive Officer | 2022 | 2025 | 3 |
McLaren Automotive is the road-car arm of the McLaren name, separate from the McLaren F1 team but sharing its Woking campus and heritage. It positions itself as an engineering-led rival to Ferrari, with lightweight carbon chassis, hydraulic suspension and active aerodynamics. Its history since 2010 has mixed acclaimed cars, such as the 720S and Senna, with recurring cash shortages that ended in the 2025 sale to CYVN Holdings. The company is headquartered in Woking, United Kingdom.
McLaren sells hand-assembled cars through a franchised retailer network. Series models (Artura, 750S and the GTS grand tourer) provide most of the volume, while Ultimate Series hypercars such as the 399-unit W1 are sold in small numbers at multi-million-dollar prices. Bespoke options from McLaren Special Operations (MSO), customer GT racing cars, servicing and parts add further income. Unlike Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin, McLaren has no SUV, which keeps volumes low.
Chief Executive Officer, McLaren Group Holdings
2025 – Present
1 year (current)
Former Ford and JLR engineering executive and CEO of Forseven. Took charge of McLaren in 2025 when owner CYVN Holdings merged McLaren with Forseven to form McLaren Group Holdings; Michael Leiters stepped down and later joined Porsche.
Chief Executive Officer
2022 – 2025
3 years
Leiters was aggressively poached from Ferrari to completely overhaul McLaren's notoriously terrible build quality and launch the Artura hybrid supercar after severe, multi-year delays.
Appointed CEO in 2022, the former Ferrari CTO is tasked with saving the company from catastrophic financial ruin by heavily expanding its lineup and securing massive recapitalization from the Bahrain sovereign wealth fund.
McLaren Automotive operates in a top, capital-intensive ultra-luxury automotive sector while managing platform electrification, quality refinement, and sovereign restructuring. Key challenges include navigating early software and thermal calibration teething issues on the Artura plug-in hybrid platform; balancing high R&D capital expenditure for next-generation electric hypercar architectures against annual operating cash flows; defending market share and collector allocations against historic Italian rival Ferrari and Porsche's GT division; managing supply chain lead times for specialized carbon-fiber composite tubs from its Sheffield composites facility; and evaluating potential luxury high-performance crossover/SUV platforms without diluting its pure supercar racing heritage.
Ron Dennis CBE is the British motorsport leader who led McLaren Racing to 10 Drivers' and 7 Constructors' World Championships before founding McLaren Automotive in 2010. Dennis conceived the Norman Foster-designed McLaren Technology Centre, greenlit the McLaren F1 in 1992, and established McLaren as an independent road-car manufacturer before departing in 2017.
Mike Flewitt served as CEO of McLaren Automotive from 2013 to 2021, overseeing the company's rapid model proliferation. Under Flewitt, McLaren launched the 'Holy Trinity' P1 hypercar, the 650S, 720S, Senna, Speedtail, GT, and established the Sheffield carbon-fiber plant (MCTC), expanding deliveries past 4,000 units annually.
Michael Leiters, a former Ferrari CTO, was CEO from July 2022 until the 2025 CYVN merger. He tightened quality checks, sorted Artura software problems and oversaw the 750S and W1 launches. He later became CEO of Porsche.
Upon taking leadership, Leiters famously delayed customer shipments of the Artura hybrid to overhaul manufacturing tolerances and electronic software integration, stating that customer vehicle reliability and brand reputation must take precedence over short-term delivery numbers.
Nick Collins is CEO of McLaren Group Holdings, which owns McLaren Automotive. A former Ford and JLR executive, he previously ran Forseven and took charge when CYVN merged the two businesses in 2025.
In 2017, following boardroom disagreements regarding ownership and investment strategy, Ron Dennis sold his remaining shareholdings in McLaren Technology Group and McLaren Automotive to Mumtalakat and the TAG Group for ~$363 million (£275 million), concluding his well-known 37-year leadership.
Goran Ozbolt and Tobias Sühlmann have led McLaren Design, establishing the brand's aerodynamic design philosophy, 'Form Follows Function', characterizing well-known design elements like the hammerhead nose, organic air-intake side channels, and aerodynamic active rear wings.
Executive leadership positioned hybridization not as an emissions penalty, but as a performance multiplier, using compact electric axial-flux motors to eliminate turbo lag and deliver instant torque fill, a philosophy showcased in the P1, Artura, and W1.
Michael Leiters serves as CEO, taking over in 2022 from Mike Flewitt. Leiters is an absolute legend in supercar engineering, having previously served as the Chief Technology Officer at Ferrari and a top executive at Porsche. His absolute primary mandate is brutal: fix McLaren's highly publicized quality control and reliability issues, and design a highly profitable, massive McLaren SUV to save the company's finances.
Compare executive leadership tenures and strategic transitions
Explore McLaren Automotive
Core profile pages, founders and related research hubs for this company.