Massimiliano Di Silvestre, former President and CEO of BMW Italy, becomes Ferrari's new Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer from July 1
He replaces Enrico Galliera, who spent 16 years at Ferrari and was reportedly kept on specifically to manage the controversial Luce EV launch
Ferrari insists the change is unrelated to the backlash, but Di Silvestre's specific background in BMW's EV marketing suggests otherwise

Ferrari wants you to believe this is a coincidence. The company announced on June 23 that Massimiliano Di Silvestre, the former President and CEO of BMW Group Italy, will become its new Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer starting July 1, barely a month after the company's first electric car, the Luce, walked into one of the most polarizing launches in Ferrari's recent history. Ferrari insists the two events are unconnected. The timing makes that a difficult sell.

Di Silvestre spent nearly seven years running BMW's Italian operations, helping the German brand secure a leading position in Italy's premium auto market through 2024 and 2025. Before that, he held various roles across the BMW Group, including a stint as Country Manager of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. He will report directly to Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna and replaces Enrico Galliera, who is leaving after more than 16 years with the company, a tenure during which Ferrari more than doubled its annual deliveries.

According to a Reuters source, Galliera and Ferrari had quietly agreed to part ways at the beginning of 2026, with Galliera staying on specifically to see the company through its EV launch before departing. If accurate, that detail alone complicates Ferrari's official framing considerably.

The Luce's debut in late May was never going to be simple. Ferrari's first electric car, a five-seat model designed in part by Jony Ive, drew sharp criticism over its styling, a notable departure from the brand's traditionally aggressive, muscular design language. The backlash was severe enough to dent Ferrari's market capitalization and spark widespread mockery online. Compounding the problem, Ferrari had already revealed the car's interior design and technical specifications months in advance, leaving almost nothing left to control the narrative with at the actual unveiling except the one element that ended up dividing opinion most: the exterior. Even Luca di Montezemolo, Enzo Ferrari's former right-hand man, weighed in publicly, suggesting the design was so unconventional that even Chinese manufacturers, often accused of copying Western designs, would have no interest in replicating it.

CEO Benedetto Vigna said in the days following the reveal that the Luce was attracting "strong interest" from both new and existing customers, though Ferrari has not released order figures and says it will only do so alongside second-quarter results at the end of July.

What makes Di Silvestre's appointment genuinely pointed is not just his luxury credentials, but the specific chapter of his BMW career Ferrari appears most interested in: his leadership of BMW's electric vehicle rollout in Italy. Galliera built his reputation on managing traditional Ferrari scarcity, limited production runs, waitlists, and the careful choreography of desire around combustion-engined cars. Di Silvestre's expertise lies somewhere else entirely: selling electrification to a premium audience that didn't necessarily ask for it.

That distinction matters because the Luce was never designed to replace a customer's V12 grand tourer. Ferrari has positioned it as a fourth or fifth car in the garage, a daily driver aimed at wealthy, tech-oriented buyers in markets like California, the Middle East, and China, where high-end electric vehicles have already found an enthusiastic audience. Whether Di Silvestre can actually deliver that buyer is the open question hanging over this entire appointment. Ferrari has spent nearly eight decades building its identity around scarcity, performance, and a refusal to compromise. Asking its new marketing chief to sell the opposite of that to people who already own the real thing is, by any measure, one of the hardest briefs in the car industry right now.