2025-11-11
OSHAWA, Ontario (November 11, 2025) – General Motors today announced the appointment of Kristian Aquilina, currently president and managing director, GM Canada, to vice president of global Cadillac, effective January 1, 2026. Kristian will report to GM senior vice president and president GM North America, Duncan Aldred and will continue to oversee GM Canada operations to ensure an orderly transition to his replacement, who will be announced at a later date.
Aquilina led GM Canada during a dynamic period, drawing on his global commercial and leadership experience. During this time, GM became the top-selling automaker in Canada for 2023 and 2024, took over the number one position for electric vehicle sales and committed investment to support next-generation production at Oshawa Assembly and St. Catharines Propulsion Plant. At the same time, the Canadian Technical Centre continued to play an important role in GM’s global engineering, software and innovation strategy.
“Under Kristian’s guidance, the GM Canada team delivered strong business performance and grew sales across our outstanding gas-powered and EV portfolio,” said Aldred. “Kristian’s diverse background in international sales and marketing will be an asset to continue to drive the resurgence of Cadillac around the world.”
“My time in Canada has been deeply rewarding as we’ve strengthened our market leadership, advanced EV adoption, invested in manufacturing, and our Canadian Technical Centre continues to be a hotbed of innovation,” said Aquilina. “Travelling across this great country to meet with dealers, employees and our many community partners has shown me the incredible impact of the GM ecosystem in Canada.”
Prior to his role in Canada, Aquilina served as the managing director of Cadillac International Operations and Cadillac Middle East, where he strengthened the Cadillac brand across numerous international markets and its operational activities in the Middle East achieved strong profitability growth while laying the groundwork for the roll-out of the Cadillac EV portfolio in the region.
In his 28 years with General Motors, Aquilina has held several leadership roles in sales and marketing as well as business unit leadership including as managing director for Holden, New Zealand and executive director of sales and marketing at GM Holden. He was appointed chairman and managing director GM Holden in 2019 and led the transition of the business to the newly formed General Motors Australia and New Zealand.
About General Motors Canada
General Motors of Canada is headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario and is part of a global company that is committed to delivering safer, better, and more sustainable ways for people to get around. In Canada, General Motors markets Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles through our strong Canadian network of dealers, as well as OnStar services. More information can be found at www.gm.ca.
