PARIS: Renault's design chief for C-segment cars Agneta Dahlgren has been named "Woman of the Year 2016" by the independent organisation WAVE (Women and Vehicles in Europe).

The award was designed to highlight the career of a woman who can serve as a role model for young women seeking work in the male-dominated automobile industry, and whose position is key to her company and to the industry as a whole.

Dahlgren is responsible for the new Mégane and the new Scénic.

“The new Scénic’s ideal proportions and highly emotional styling have reinvented the MPV segment,” notes a member of the WAVE panel. “Agneta Dahlgren has worked on the design of models that have allowed Renault to express its new identity in a very natural manner. Along with the new Mégane, it is certainly a model that will help to drive the brand’s growth.”

After studying design engineering in her native Sweden, Dahlgren moved to France in 1990 to round off her Industrial Design studies at Compiègne’s University of Technology. She has lived in France since, working for Renault.

She went on to join the Corporate Design’s concept car department where she gained a more prospective overview which she was able apply from 2000 as Project Leader working on the design of several vehicles, from trucks (within the framework of a partnership between Renault and Volvo Trucks) to small city cars. She held this position for almost 10 years.

It wasn’t long before her cross-functional vision, her ability to take technical constraints into account, her aptitude for negotiation and her work on the all-electric Renault ZOE were noticed. She was appointed the design chief in 2009 and is also charged with the design of electric cars.

The annual "Woman of the Year" award is based on a vote by automobile industry journalists of both genders

Keywords