Peter Schreyer
Chief Design Officer, Kia Motors
Born in 1953 in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, Peter Schreyer grew up on his parents’ farm and soon developed a passion for cars and airplanes—and sketching.
During his study of industrial design at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Schreyer took an internship at Audi Design, which was the beginning of a 28-year relationship with Audi and Volkswagen.
After studying at the Royal College of Art in London he started his first job at Audi in 1980. Between 1993 and 1994, he worked at Volkswagen creating Passat and Golf as well as the production version of the New Beetle. As a chief designer at Audi from 1994 to 2002, Schreyer played an important role in the brand building of Audi into a premium “design brand.”
His work at Audi and Volkswagen was recognized and honored with various international design awards. In 2003 he got the highest personal recognition with the design award of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2007 he was honored with an Honorary Doctorate by the Royal College of Art in recognition of his contribution to automotive design.
In 2006, Peter Schreyer took a new challenge, as he became Chief Design Officer at Kia.
Under Schreyer’s leadership, Kia has completely renewed its product range and launched new products, such as Soul, Sorento and Sportage, K7 and K5, Rio and Picanto. Kia sales and brand value has increased dramatically.
The combination of passion and creativity has been essential to Peter Schreyer’s career in the automotive industry, but also to his creative work in his free time, mainly painting. In Korea his art project for the Design Biennale in Gwangju 2009 was a milestone that established his reputation as an artist.