Dany Bahar

Dany Bahar is a Turkish-born Swiss business executive and the founder of luxury automotive retailer ARES. His involvement in the automotive and motorsports industries began at Red Bull, where between 2003 and 2007 he led the launch of the Formula One teams Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso. From 2007 to 2009 he was Senior Vice President Commercial and Brand at Ferrari, after which he became CEO of Group Lotus, a term which ended in 2012 after the parent company was taken over. In 2012 he founded ARES, an Italian company modifying high-performance cars.

Early life and education

Dany Bahar was born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1971, and grew up in the Swiss ski village of Silvaplana, near the Italian border. He studied marketing at the Kaufmännische Handelsschule (commercial school) in Wil, Switzerland.

Career

Early career

Dany Bahar began his career as a sports marketer for Coni Altherr, a Swiss inline skating company and the founder of the Swiss Inline Cup. He later moved to Rome where he worked for Sabatino Aracu, president of the International Roller Sports Federation. In 2001, after a time in Dubai as a project coordinator for an IT firm, he worked for two years as an asset manager for Fritz Kaiser, a wealth management entrepreneur based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.