(Yicai Global) Nov. 4 -- The former head of the Chinese arm of Ford’s luxury marque Lincoln will join Lotus Cars, a UK sports car brand majority owned by China’s Geely Holding Group, as founding partner and China president on Nov. 15.

Mao Jingbo, who has 20 years of experience operating luxury brands, will help Lotus develop in the high-end electric vehicles market, The Paper reported yesterday. She will report to Lotus Chief Executive Officer Feng Qingfeng.

In her four-year tenure managing Lincoln’s business operations in the Asia Pacific region and China, Mao helped the brand realize localized production in China and increased its annual sales to over 91,620 last year from 55,315 in 2018.

Mao served as sales executive at luxury German carmaker Mercedes-Benz before joining Lincoln.

Lotus began sales of its Eletre-branded all-electric hyper-sports utility vehicles in China on Oct. 25. The Eletre S+ and Eletre R+, the first mass-produced models in the country, are priced at CNY828,000 (USD113,370) and CNY1,028,000 (USD140,770) and will start deliveries in March and May, respectively.

Zhejiang province-based Geely bought Lotus in 2017. After the acquisition, the luxury brand set up a production base in Wuhan, Hubei province.ast year, Lotus announced a plan to roll out five all-electric models in the next five years and stop developing fossil fuel-powered cars.

Editor: Martin Kadiev