Annette Winkler

Annette Winkler is a German business executive widely known for her role as the CEO and director of Smart Automobile, the division of Daimler AG noted for manufacturing and marketing the two-passenger Smart Fortwo and four-passenger Smart Forfour city cars, from 2010 to 2018.

As the first woman to head a Daimler brand, Automotive News Europe described Winkler's 2010 appointment as "a significant victory for women in a male-dominated industry".

In early 2018, Daimler announced Winkler retirement as the division's CEO at the end of September, 2018 after 23 years with the company. She was appointed as a member of the advisory board of Mercedes-Benz South Africa as of January 2019. She resigned from this position when she joined the Renault Board of Directors in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

Background Born in Wiesbaden, West Germany in 1959, Winkler completed training as an industrial clerk and thereafter an internship at the Karlsberg brewery in Homburg, Saarland. and completed her thesis on corporate valuation and jurisprudence

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche first met Winkler in 1995 at a convention in Stuttgart, where she stood out as a particularly strong speaker. Though she had no prior automotive or publicity experience,

Winkler went on to head a Mercedes-Benz branch for passenger cars, trucks and After-Sales in Brunswick (1997–1999), She subsequently became CEO of Daimler (then DaimlerChrysler) of Belgium and Luxembourg (1999–2005) and after that the Vice President of Global Business Management & Wholesale Europe, in particular responsible for the worldwide dealer-network of the group (2005–2010).

Also, under Winkler's direction, Smart focused on car sharing and rental programs — namely Daimler AG's Car2Go subsidiary — as well as development and marketing of electric bicycles.

As of 2014, Winkler joined the board of directors at Air Liquide, a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries, and became a Member of the Counsel for Foreign Economic Affairs of the German Ministry for Economics.

In 2018, Winkler resigned from Daimler, succeeded by Katrin Adt. In 2019, Winkler was appointed to Renault's Board of Directors.

Personal Growing up, Winkler was a classical music aficionado, intensively playing the piano. Colleagues describe her as a "ständig aufgeladene Batterie" — a battery that's always fully charged.