Biography

Mr. Purcell’s career encompasses 25 years of producing results and demonstrating year-over-year improvements with respect to safety, quality, efficiency, cost and timing, including more than 20 years in the automotive industry. He has a proven track record as a strong and decisive operations leader, most recently with Gibson Brands, where he managed policy deployment in the areas of lean manufacturing, quality, cost reduction, safety, customer satisfaction, employee relations, visual controls and overall plant performance, and was responsible for overseeing the company's five site global footprint. During his time as Director of Manufacturing at Tesla, he was responsible for both Model S and Model X body and stamping shops overseeing a team of more than 1,000 engineers, technicians and associates. During his tenure, he drove a production output increase of 35% and labor content reduction of 33% and reprioritized a previously deployed Capex budget toward higher impact projects with simplified project scope saving $3M while reducing unnecessary risk. Prior to Tesla, Mr. Purcell held senior-level positions at both Kia and Nissan.