Han Sang-yun, head of sales at BMW Korea, will lead BMW Malaysia as the new managing director and CEO from January 2016, according to BMW AG on Friday.

Han is the first Korean CEO to lead an overseas branch of the German luxury carmaker except the Korean market.

The new head of BMW Malaysia has more than 20 years of work experience in different sectors of the auto industry from sales to marketing and product management and will be able to apply his experience and expertise to further drive the BMW Group in the Malaysian premium automotive segment, the German automaker said.

For the new sales head of BMW Korea, Joo Yang-ye, director of sales and marketing at MINI Korea, will replace Han, BMW Korea said.

(jyseo@heraldcorp.com)