【People in Porsche Taiwan】

CEO, Christian Nater | Chapter 1

Christian Nater grew up surrounded by the smell of motor oil and different cars from Porsche, Volkswagen and AUDI because of his family background.? And while a love of cars may have driven the chief executive of Porsche Taiwan throughout his 26-year career, he says it’s taken a cool head to succeed at the carmaker of his dreams.

The love of cars runs deep in his family. That was where Christian found the spark to ignite his passion for automobiles, one which inspired him to keep pushing forward even as his route took a very different turn.

Christian couldn't wait to get behind the wheel. His first time in the driving seat had to be something special: A vintage Volkswagen Beetle. "This is one of the dream cars from the past," he says. "That was the beginning."

Simply driving this timeless classic would have been memorable enough experience for some, but he wanted to test the limits of what was possible. Christian and his brother had spent hours in the workshop making sure it was "optimised", as he puts it, with a twinkle in his eye.

"It wasn't a fast car -- it only had 34 horsepower and a four-cylinder engine," he says. But its low weighting and rear position of its flat-4 design was originally a Porsche concept, one that found its way into the flat-6 engine in the Boxster and 911.?

Christian says his upbringing helped him to "appreciate the little things" like that. He learned step-by-step to take chances, becoming more confident with each success, more able to elaborate what might go wrong, and to have fallback options — whether choosing an engine or traveling halfway around the world. That’s essential to have the courage to succeed at a market leader like Porsche: "I have to take risk every day as CEO," he says.

Christian was a trailblazer in his family, becoming the first to go to university -- "maybe I was just interested in showing you can combine these more academic subjects with a passion for cars," he says. Even then, the automobile industry was never far away: His studies in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, put him just a half-hour drive from Volkswagen's headquarters in Wolfsburg.

During the final year of his master's degree, Christian visited Porsche's headquarters in Stuttgart with some fellow industrial engineering students and heard with excitement about the opportunities at the company. But without a point of contact at the firm, it wasn’t clear what to do next. For many, that would have been the end of the road.

Instead, Christian marched up to his tour guide and asked where should he apply. That man was Andreas Haffner, who was assistant to the company’s Executive Board member for Human Resources at that time. And the timing was just right: A vacant post had just opened. "Sometimes you just have to be brave" Christian says. It was the just foot in the door he needed to the carmarker of his dreams, and the beginning of the journey of a lifetime.

To be continued in Chapter 2…

從小就被保時捷、福斯與奧迪品牌汽車包圍，台灣保時捷總裁 Christian Nater 先生在滿滿的燃油氣味的環境中成長，不過對於已投身汽車產業 26 年的他來說，要在這個夢想中的汽車品牌中獲得成功，仰賴的是冷靜的思考判斷。

家庭的對汽車的熱愛，深深影響了 Christian，激勵他不斷努力向前，朝夢想中的產業邁進。他永遠記得首次手握方向盤的那一刻，那是一台福斯的老 Beetle 金龜車，「那是當時所有人的夢想車，」他回憶「同時也是這一切的開始。」

僅僅駕駛這款永恆的經典車款，對於一般人來說已是難忘的回憶，但他想測試更多極限，於是與他的兄弟在車庫中改裝優化這台車，說到這個過往時， Christian 眼中發出開心的光芒。

當然，這台 Beetle 絕對不是一輛快車，採用四缸引擎，馬力也僅有 34 匹。但經典的輕量設計與水平對臥的引擎配置，是源自保時捷車款的原始概念，也是 Boxster 和 911 的水平對臥 6 缸引擎設計起源。

Christian 的成長過程幫助他「欣賞每件小事」，他也逐漸勇於冒險，於每次的成功中累積信心，也更能提前推斷，並準備應對可能出錯之處 ─ 無論是選擇一款引擎，或是行遍世界各地。這樣的勇氣，對像保時捷這樣的市場領導者來說，就是取得成功的重要精神。「身為品牌總裁，我每天都在冒險」他說。

Christian 是家族中的開拓者：家中第一位上大學的成員。「我對能將學術科目，與車輛的熱情相結合非常感興趣」，同時汽車行業也與他在學的下薩克森州的布藍茲維近在咫尺，距離Volkswagen 的總部狼堡僅有半小時車程。

碩士的最後一年，Christian 與一些工業工程學生一起參觀了保時捷斯圖加特總部，並對保時捷潛在的工作機會非常興奮，但當時並沒有聯繫管道，對很多人來說，也許就會是放棄的時間點。

但是 Christian 決定走到當次拜訪的導覽面前，直接詢問他可以在哪裡應徵？這位導覽恰巧是Andreas Haffner，當時保時捷人力資源執行董事會成員的助手，而非常恰巧的，也有一個職位空缺剛開放！「有時你就是需要勇敢一點」Christian 說，這正是他跨入夢想汽車產業的門檻，也是這一生奇妙旅程的開始。

鎖定 Porsche Taiwan LinkedIn，第二章將帶來 Cayenne 誕生祕辛！