Rita Forst beer drinking songs ... Mum a Mia!

Whilst working in OPEL Reusselsheim, I as a member of the USA team found my German counterparts to be friendly and helpful.
There was a faction who felt that OPEL as a German manufacturer in the mould of BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz etc had the upper hand when it came to technology and quality.
While I was there we had engineers from Sweden (Saab) Australia (Holden) and they were just starting to use Fiat drivetrains (Italy).
The Opel tech centre is home to many nationalities. Generally, they get on...
During my time at Opel, Rita Forst was head of Powertrain.
Today Rita effectively heads up GM Reusselsheim.
Bloomberg reports that Rita is encouraging the singing of Beer drinking songs when dealing with non German colleagues...

As an executive at the carmaker’s powertrain unit, she’s belted out German drinking songs over dinners with Swedish colleagues to loosen people up. While heading GM’s diesel engine development center in Turin, Italy, she set up exchanges between German and Italian employees who were reluctant to cooperate.
“You can only work in a globalized environment if you know, accept and adapt to various cultures,” the 55-year-old German said in an interview. “That can lead to friendships and makes things a whole lot easier.”

I'm not sure how the Swedes reacted. However,Saab has since been sold off...
Here is a video from this years Paris Show. Nick Reilly, Rita's boss opens and Rita finishes.



I enjoyed my time at Opel. I wish them well.

All you potental funding partners out their contact me through my web page:
http://motorsportuniversitymalysia.com/

I will be participating at this years ASLI automotive conference in KL 2-3 December 2010.
 You can meet me there, if you wish to send a delegate.

On a funding note: Malaysian PM Najib announced his budget today.
A portion taken from the Star.

FIRST STRATEGY: REINVIGORATING PRIVATE INVESTMENT
19.Another PPP(Public-Private Partnership Initiatives) project identified is the Academic Medical Centre. This project is a joint venture between Academic Medical Centre Sdn. Bhd. and Johns Hopkins Medicine International as well as Royal College of Surgeons Ireland. This project involves private investment of RM2 billion

The text of Najibs speech starts with the words:
1.Praise be to Allah, for enabling me to table the 2011 National Budget. Indeed, this is a significant budget. This Budget is a precursor in our final efforts towards achieving Vision 2020, which is 3,365 days or 9 years, 2 months and 17 days away.

As you can gather, Malaysia is a Muslim led country. I'm not sure if Rita will be sitting down with Najib for a beer drinking song session any time soon.
Secondly, Malaysia is striving to become a fully developed nation by 2020. It's neighbour Singapore has already achieved this.
My proposal would be on the border between the two nations.
I'm neither a Muslim nor a German beer drinker.
However, I must fully endorse Rita's statement:
“You can only work in a globalized environment if you know, accept and adapt to various cultures,” the 55-year-old German said in an interview. “That can lead to friendships and makes things a whole lot easier.”

On that note,
I'd like to wish everyone, everywhere, a very happy weekend.

Rita Forst to head Opel Engineering... Lotus in Detroit Show

I have just read that Nick Reilly head of GM worldwide, minus North America, has moved Hans Demant over to Intellectual property head under Tom Stephens.
Rita Forst is taking his place in Opel.
During my time in Ruesellsheim, Rita was head of Powertrain.
Rita beside a powertrain



Lotus had a small area in her domain, where they provided support for Opel on the Ecotec engine they helped design when a division of GM.
Rita was at that time the highest level female executive within GM Europe. Nothing has changed in that regard!
Hans Demant was based on the same floor as me. He had just been promoted at that time to head of Engineering.
At the time I was part of the North American team on a joint design project between Opel and Saturn.
Good luck to both of them in their new positions.
While I'm at it, good luck to all the Reusselsheim people. I enjoyed my time there.
Once again I will mention the ASLI auotomotive conference. I have contacted possible speakers on their behalf.
Talking of which, I see on the Lotus enthusiasts site, that Dany Bahar is in Detroit promoting Lotus at the Auto Show. Dany for those of you who don't know is the CEO of Group Lotus.
Lotus/Morgan stand at the Detroit Auto Show

The ASLI conference will coincide with the 2010 Kuala Lumpur Motor show. 3-12 December 2010
I have been approached to participate. It is presently my intention to use my slideshare presentation as a basis for discussion.

Motorsport University Malaysia

View more presentations from johnsean.

As I stated in my previous post, I have upped the virtual student count in my webpage to reflect those proposed by Limkokwing of ONE MILLION VIRTUAL students.
Limkokwing is one of the most successful private Universities in Malaysia, and as such is serving as my benchmark in this regard.