Editor's note: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect location for Qell's headquarters. Its offices are in San Francisco.
Barry Engle's recent exit from General Motors raised questions about the industry veteran's next move in automotive.
It turns out, Engle — who left the automaker this summer after 15 months at the helm of North America operations — is now CEO of Qell Acquisition Corp., a special-purchase acquisition company he recently co-founded.
The publicly traded company, based in San Francisco, is searching for potential merger targets in the next-generation mobility and sustainable industrial transportation sectors.
Engle, 56, spoke with Staff Reporter Alexa St. John about his latest venture. Here are edited excerpts.
Q: Tell us about Qell Acquisition Corp. What's in the name?
A: We had been looking for a number of weeks together as a team trying to come up with a name. After a weekend of Scrabble, board member (and former Tower Automotive CEO) Kathleen Ligocki said, "Here's a Q word for you." If you Google Qell, it does show up in the Urban Dictionary with a fairly favorable translation. We liked it because it's short, it's one-syllable, it's memorable and nobody else was using it.
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