We Sit Down for a Chat with Laura Schwab, President of Aston Martin The Americas
MONTREAL, Quebec – This week, we were at Decarie Motors, the official retailer of Aston Martin vehicles for all of Eastern Canada, in Montreal, for a chance to meet a very special guest; Ms Laura Schwab, president of Aston Martin The Americas. Laura has been at the head of the company since 2015, ensuring product growth in Canadian, American and Mexican markets. She is the first woman to have inherited the position throughout the history of the iconic British brand.
We sat down with Laura to speak about her professional background, the challenges she has faced as a woman making her way through a typically male-dominated industry, as well as the future of the Aston Martin brand here in North America.
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Along the way, Laura shares with us what her first car was, how her interest in the automotive industry manifested itself at a young age when working in a California startup that happened to sell cars online, and how she went from working at Jaguar Land Rover to a being the president of one of the most prestigious British sports car manufacturers in the world.
In a separate group interview with other journalists, Ms. Schwab spoke about the upcoming Aston Martin Vantage and how it will illustrate a significantly different styling direction than the DB11, the brand’s current flagship sports car. According to Laura, variety in design is a crucial step in the brand’s image in the future. She also brought up the topic of electrification and autonomy by specifying that even in an automated world, the desire to drive will remain a dominant request in the industry. She also spoke of the upcoming Aston Martin RapidE, an all-electric sports sedan, which is expected to be released next year.
