Frank-Steffen Walliser

German engineer who was overall project manager of the Porsche 918 Spyder from November 2010 and has been Chairman and Chief Executive of Bentley Motors since July 2024.

He was born in Stuttgart on 16 August 1969 and studied mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart, concentrating on combustion engines and technology management. He joined Porsche at Weissach in April 1995 as a student and completed his internship, diploma and doctorate with the company. Chemnitz examined that doctorate, on introducing and stabilising changed processes in product development, on 30 April 1999. From October 1998 he headed technology observation and foreign vehicle analysis; from February 2000 he assisted the research-and-development directors Horst Marchart and Wolfgang Dürheimer.

From April 2003 to January 2008 he headed motorsport strategy and, Porsche later wrote, helped to develop the RS Spyder. He then headed system management for electrics and electronics and, from August 2008, hardware integration. From November 2010 he was overall project manager of the 918 Spyder. A 2015 Porsche profile says he brought the plug-in hybrid to production maturity and a Nürburgring record lap; Porsche’s 2014 announcement identifies the record as 6:57 for road-homologated production sports cars.

On 1 October 2014 he became Vice President of Motorsport, responsible for Porsche’s worldwide GT racing and GT production sports cars, and remained 918 project manager; Fritz Enzinger retained LMP1. He took the 911 and 718 model lines from August Achleitner in the first quarter of 2019, keeping the GT road-car project lead so those cars stayed tied to Flacht, and passed the lines to Frank Moser in the third quarter of 2022.

He became Vice President Complete Vehicle Architecture and Characteristics, responsible for the technical design of future Porsche models of all series. On 1 July 2024 he left Porsche for Bentley Motors as Chairman and Chief Executive, succeeding Adrian Hallmark. He still holds that office. Bentley has recast its plan as Beyond100+ and named the Torcal as its first electric car; in a Linkage Magazine interview he said full electrification had been put back toward the beginning of 2035.