Liang was practically born in a car plant.  His father worked in a plant; Liang worked in a plant; and his son is studying to someday manage a plant.  

At one time, you would have described Liang as a guy with “oil in his veins”.  But not anymore.  What drew Liang here was the opportunity to build fast, luxurious, ELECTRIC cars, because in his heart Liang is an environmentalist.  He loves green grass, blue sky, and what nature gives us, and believes fiercely in protecting our natural gifts for the next generation. 

He came to us from Beijing Foton-Daimler Automotive, where he was CEO, President, and Board Director.  He holds Bachelors, Masters, and Phd degrees from world-class technical universities. 

It wasn’t easy to find someone with these qualifications who loves to drive AND who talks about sustainability every day.  We think he is a perfect fit.

Dennis is committed to the journey.

He left a dairy farm to join GM at 18. He moved his family to China in 1996 to manage an assembly line populated by workers who had NEVER DRIVEN a car; they had to be taught to drive the cars off the end of the line. He discovered a new planet at Saturn in Tennessee. He managed a plant in Saltillo employing 5,000 workers. He trained in lean manufacturing principles, and implemented them everywhere he went.

When Dennis isn’t working, he isn’t sitting. He recharges his batteries by skydiving, skiing black diamonds, and scuba diving in the Red Sea.

Dennis is thrilled to take the leap and plant the landing here at Karma.

Jim loves telling stories.

He has a lot of them to tell. He has seen so much. After a few decades as a plant rat and engineering and purchasing honcho, he made the transition to marketing for Cadillac (NO ONE moves from engineering to marketing in the auto industry; it is the business equivalent of the Maginot Line). He was dead center of the renaissance of that storied brand.

For his next act, he spent some years at the other end of the food chain, running a couple of successful high-tech startups in the “new energy” transportation space. The pull to be back in the car-building business was irresistible. And in California! He is loving it.

Like any self-respecting Canadian, he has broken his nose playing hockey too many times to count. We try not to notice.

Ken is our Renaissance man.

He trained as an engineer, but his first paycheck came from a Dixieland jazz band. He has designed engines; worked with NASA’s Space Shuttle Program and marketed cars. His intellectual appetite is broad, and he is a leading candidate for the executive you would most like to have dinner with if you couldn’t talk about work.

His job here is to figure out what consumers want; what is possible; and what Karma should do. It combines business and technology strategy. Most of us are focused on launching a car. Ken is focused on what we do after we launch the car.

He grew up in Detroit, with a father who spent a life working in the car business. He is Midwest-nice, has travelled the world and works successfully with everyone. He does have an unusual propensity to wear Dockers slacks, but we forgive him most of the time.

Bob is an engineer’s engineer.

It is difficult to summarize the exploits of Bob in a paragraph. His resume is eleven pages long, and it is hard to know where to start. He was a Sloan Fellow at MIT. He was appointed to the National Academy of Sciences subcommittee on advanced battery technology. He led hybrid and electric vehicles and advanced battery technology at one of the largest OEMs in the world. If they awarded PhDs to “Car Guys,” he would be at the front of the class.

He doesn’t mess around. If a part isn’t working, he calls the supplier. Not anybody at the supplier; he calls the person who can make something good happen. Not during business hours; anytime. Before long, the part works fine.

The bigger the challenge, the bigger his smile. He says that he loves working for such a design driven company. We love having him.

Alex is deep.

As the ocean. He is so creative, so introspective, and so thoughtful, that we all feel like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. I’ll have what he is having.

He earned his chops for a great German brand, and then was a leader of the design team responsible for creating the first Karma. So he knows a lot about creating beauty.

He was also chair of the master’s program in transportation design at the Center for Creative Studies, in Detroit, Michigan. In that capacity, he mentored brilliant, passionate students from all over the world, and pretended he was Dean Wormer of Faber College when no one was looking. That sounds like an awesome job.

He met his wife while strolling on the Santa Monica Pier. The California sensibility—progressive, organic, sensual—is in his heart, and infuses his work.

Joost loves customers.

He has spent a lifetime convincing organizations that taking care of customers is good for business. We knew that. That’s why we hired him.

His whole career has been focused on setting up sales and service organizations for vehicle manufacturers, to every corner of the earth, from South America to Europe to Asia.

He started when he was 18, building a dealer infrastructure going door-to-door across 4000 miles of expanse in Russia, with a suitcase, a cheap suit, and tireless energy. He has never stopped.

He has been too young for every job he ever had. Until now.