Jochen Paesen

Jochen was born in Belgium, where he spent the first 9 years of his life. He then moved to South Africa, followed by France, England, The Netherlands and Germany. Today, Jochen lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. A life full of variety and change, combined with a love for travel, has been the inspiration for his creative talent.

Jochen’s passion extends beyond his job into his spare time; art, design and photography are key parts of his life. In his artwork, he employs classic car design tools: pen, paper and marker. Jochen frames each subject in its essence to create pure, dreamy yet detailed drawings. His photography captures a moment in time, emitting energy, a love for detailing or portraying speed, and adrenaline, all in a still image.

As VP of Interior Design at Kia, Jochen is responsible for defining and guiding the creativity of its Interior and CMF designs globally. Prior to this, he worked at the start-up NIO where he was Design Director for both Interior and CMF Design. Under his lead, the teams designed the EP9, EVE Concept Car, as well as the ES8 and ES6 production cars. Before joining NIO, Jochen was Head of Interior Design for BMWi. During his time at BMW and BMW M, he worked as Interior Design Project Leader for the 7-series (G11/12) and M4GTS. As a designer, he worked on the 6-series (F12/13) and was the lead designer of the BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics Concept (Concept Car of the year 2009), amongst other projects. Jochen also worked for Volkswagen where he designed the interior of the first Volkswagen Amarok.