Kamislav Fadel graduated from École Supérieure d’Optique in 1991. In May of that year, he joined Valeo at their Bobigny, France lighting headquarters as a Junior Lighting Expert; eventually he became Senior Manager of Lighting Design. In April 2001, he joined Renault as their Lighting R&D Manager, and in September 2007 he joined Automotive Lighting as R&D Vice President at the company’s HQ in Reutlingen, Germany. Fadel has made his entire career in the vehicle lighting field, and has tackled challenges on the supplier and OEM side of things with great success. He is truly a lighting visioneer and has contributed greatly to the launch of innovative LED lighting on premium cars, including presiding over the fitment of LED headlamps with HID-level performance. Now he’s R&D Director at Hella, and he was kind enough to talk with us.
DVN: What do you retain from your experience at your former companies?
Kamislav Fadel: The experiences I had with the 3 companies where I worked were very fruitful. From Valeo I learnt what was lighting, optics design with optical calculation, simulations and everything concerning design. It was a passionate time because I had the possibility to build optical surfaces and to perfectly know what is a headlamp and a rear lamp.