Ralph Victor Gilles (; born 14 January 1970) is a

Canadian-American Canadian Americans is a term that can be applied to American citizens whose ancestry is wholly or partly Canadian, or citizens of either country that hold dual citizenship. The term ''Canadian'' can mean a nationality or an ethnicity. Canadia ...

automobile designer and executive. In 1992, he joined Chrysler. Gilles styled the

North American Car of the Year The North American Car, Utility and Truck of the Year are a set of automotive awards announced at a news conference each January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The jury consists of no more than 60 automotive journali ...

-winning 2005

Chrysler 300 The Chrysler 300 is a full-size luxury car manufactured and marketed by Stellantis North America (and its predecessor companies) as a four-door sedan and station wagon in its first generation (model years 2005–2010) and solely as a four-d ...

. Gilles also led the design team that created the 2014 SRT Viper. Gilles was the President and CEO of Chrysler's SRT brand and Senior Vice President of Design at Chrysler before being promoted to Head of Design for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in April 2015. Following FCA's merger into the Stellantis group in 2021, he became chief design officer for the newly merged company.

Background

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to Haitian immigrants, Gilles was raised in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. Gilles was drawing concept vehicles at the age of eight. When he was fourteen years old, his aunt Gisele Mouscardy sent one of his sketches to then Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca. A reply came from K. Neil Walling, Chrysler's design chief at the time, suggesting he attend one of three design schools. He lives in

Oxford, Michigan Oxford is a village in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 3,436 at the 2010 census. The village is located within Oxford Township. Located about north of Detroit, it is a northern suburb of the Metro Detroit r ...

Education

He studied at

Vanier College Vanier College ( French: ''Collège Vanier'') is an English-language public college located in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1970 as the second English-language public college of Quebec's public coll ...

in Montreal, before moving back to the United States for university studies. Gilles attended the

College for Creative Studies College for Creative Studies (CCS) is a private art school in Detroit, Michigan. It enrolls more than 1,400 students and focuses on arts education. The college is also active in offering art education to children through its Community Arts Par ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, and in 2002 received an

Executive MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...

from Michigan State University.

Career

In 1992, he joined Chrysler. In August of 2008, Gilles replaced the retiring Trevor Creed as Senior Vice President of Design. In October 2009, Gilles was promoted to president and CEO of the Dodge car brand. He was replaced as Dodge's CEO in June 2011, remaining Senior Vice President of Design and becoming CEO of Chrysler's Street and Racing Technology division. Gilles was profiled in the first season of the

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docu-series '' Abstract: The Art of Design''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilles, Ralph 1970 births American people of Haitian descent Living people College for Creative Studies alumni Michigan State University alumni Canadian engineers Chrysler designers American emigrants to Canada Businesspeople from Montreal Haitian Quebecers Chrysler executives American automobile designers People from Oxford, Michigan