Tag Archives: Genesis

News

Genesis Returns to TGL as Golf Goes Prime Time

Genesis has never been shy about aligning itself with golf’s upper crust, but its continued partnership with TGL presented by SoFi feels less like traditional sponsorship and more like a statement of intent. This isn’t your grandfather’s country-club golf—and Genesis isn’t interested in being your grandfather’s luxury brand.

The automaker confirmed it will return as a founding partner for TGL’s second season, which tees off December 28, 2025, live on ABC from the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The opening match? A Finals rematch between reigning champion Atlanta Drive Golf Club and New York Golf Club—because of course you start season two with unfinished business.

For Genesis, the appeal is obvious. TGL is golf reengineered for prime time: faster, louder, tech-heavy, and designed for an audience that might be more familiar with OLED screens than fairway grass. In other words, it’s a league built for the same customer Genesis is chasing.

A Brand Built on Precision Meets a Sport Reinvented by Tech

Genesis executives have been consistent about their strategy: performance, innovation, and hospitality—three words that also happen to define TGL’s pitch. The league blends real PGA TOUR talent with a hybrid format that starts with full swings fired into a massive 3,400-square-foot simulator screen before transitioning to a physical short-game complex featuring rotating greens and reconfigurable bunkers. It’s part golf lab, part esports arena, and part prime-time spectacle.

Matches are streamlined but still meaningful. Fifteen custom-designed holes per match, nine played in Triples and six in Singles, with every hole worth a point. No filler. No walking between shots. Every swing counts, which makes it easier to understand—and easier to sell.

Genesis sees the same opportunity it saw years ago by tying itself to the PGA TOUR and major international events. This is golf as a modern product, not just a tradition, and Genesis wants to be the brand parked right next to it.

Turning Sponsorship into Experience

Where Genesis separates itself is how deeply it embeds into the event. This season introduces a “Player of the Match” spotlight powered by fan voting across broadcast, digital, and social platforms, with select fans earning a VIP Genesis Finals experience. The brand will also serve as a custom hole sponsor during live broadcasts, integrating directly into the on-screen storytelling rather than sitting quietly on a banner.

Inside the arena, Genesis leans into what it does best: hospitality and presentation. The Genesis Lounge returns with premium access that places guests alongside athletes, celebrities, and VIPs. Genesis owners get exclusive premier parking—because luxury brands never miss an opportunity to remind you who gets the good spots.

There’s also a scavenger hunt—yes, really—called Genesis Scavenger Hunt: Drive and Seek, designed to push fans through the arena while interacting with the brand. It’s marketing, but it’s interactive marketing, which feels appropriately on-brand for a league that literally rotates its greens on a turntable.

And then there are the cars. Three Genesis SUVs will be displayed throughout SoFi Center, including the GV80, GV80 Coupe, and the GV80 Coupe Prestige Black. No surprises there: Genesis knows which vehicles best communicate its current design and luxury ambitions.

Why This Makes Sense for Genesis

Genesis already owns a substantial chunk of professional golf real estate, from the Genesis Invitational to the Scottish Open and the Presidents Cup. TGL simply adds a younger, more tech-forward layer to that portfolio—one that fits neatly alongside a brand still proving it belongs in the luxury conversation.

TGL’s second season runs 10 weeks, includes 15 regular-season matches, and culminates in Finals at the end of March. The global broadcast footprint spans 152 countries, with coverage across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN App, and JTBC Golf in Korea. For a brand with global aspirations, that’s exposure money can’t easily buy.

Genesis isn’t just sponsoring golf anymore—it’s helping reshape how the sport is consumed. And in doing so, it’s quietly reinforcing the message it’s been sending all along: luxury doesn’t have to be conservative, and tradition doesn’t have to stand still.

If this is the future of golf, Genesis clearly wants the keys.

Source: Genesis

News

Genesis Appoints Sean Lee as Global Head, Setting the Course for Its Next Decade

Genesis is entering a pivotal new chapter, and the luxury brand has chosen a familiar and proven hand to lead the way. Hyundai Motor Company has announced the appointment of Sean (Sihyeok) Lee as Global Head of Genesis, effective December 8, 2025, alongside his promotion to Senior Vice President from January 1, 2026. The move comes as Genesis closes out its first decade and prepares for its most ambitious product and brand expansion yet.

Lee steps into the role with 25 years of experience at Hyundai Motor Company, much of it deeply intertwined with Genesis’ rise from a young luxury marque into a globally recognized contender. Since joining Hyundai in 2000, Lee has worked across brand management, marketing, and product planning, building a résumé that reflects both strategic depth and operational execution.

His modern Genesis-era impact began in earnest in August 2017, when he joined the brand to lead product planning and operations. During this period, Genesis saw notable gains in both global volume and profitability, laying the groundwork for the aggressive international push that followed.

North America, Genesis’ most important overseas market, has been central to Lee’s recent success. Since 2021, he has held multiple leadership roles across Hyundai and Genesis operations in the region, most recently overseeing product and business planning. The results have been decisive. Annual Genesis sales in North America surged from 16,000 units in 2020 to 75,000 units in 2024, with forecasts pointing to 82,000 units in 2025—an increase of 468 percent in just five years. Market share followed a similar trajectory, climbing from 0.9 percent to 2.7 percent, with further growth expected.

Equally important has been the qualitative evolution of the brand. Under Lee’s leadership, Genesis significantly expanded its standalone retail presence, with nearly 90 dedicated showrooms expected by the end of 2025. He also played a key role in the enhanced launches of the GV70 and GV80, reinforcing the competitiveness of Genesis’ core products in a fiercely contested luxury SUV segment.

Hyundai Motor Company President and CEO José Muñoz made clear that Lee’s appointment is as much about the future as it is about past performance. He described Lee as “the right leader for Genesis at the right time,” pointing to upcoming milestones that include the brand’s first hybrid and EREV models, broader global expansion, and Genesis Magma Racing’s entry into the World Endurance Championship.

That future-facing agenda will define Lee’s tenure. Genesis is preparing to introduce a long-anticipated flagship SUV, expand its electrified powertrain strategy beyond pure EVs, and grow the Magma high-performance lineup into a defining sub-brand. Together, these initiatives signal a shift from Genesis as a fast-rising challenger to a fully established luxury brand with technical, emotional, and motorsport credibility.

For Lee, the timing is not lost. He described the appointment as an honor at a pivotal moment, emphasizing a renewed commitment to “progressive luxury” as Genesis enters its second decade.

Lee succeeds Mike (Min Kyu) Song, who has led Genesis as Global Head for the past three years. Song’s tenure was marked by rapid global expansion and historic milestones, including surpassing one million cumulative global sales faster than any other luxury brand. He also oversaw the launch of the Genesis Magma performance program and expanded the brand’s footprint to 20 global markets.

With a strong foundation in place and an aggressive roadmap ahead, Genesis’ leadership transition appears less like a change of direction and more like a deliberate handoff. Under Sean Lee, the brand is positioning itself not just to grow, but to redefine what its next decade will stand for in the global luxury automotive landscape.

Source: Genesis

CONCEPT CARS

Genesis Marks 10 Years With the G90 Wingback Concept—A Velvet-Gloved Warning Shot

For a brand that didn’t exist before 2015, Genesis is moving with the swagger of a company that’s been building luxury cars for generations. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Korean marque didn’t just throw a party—it rolled out a manifesto. Alongside the production-ready GV60 Magma, Genesis pulled the sheet off the G90 Wingback Concept, a low-slung, long-roof grand tourer that signals where the brand’s Magma performance subline is headed next.

And if you ask Genesis Chief Creative Officer Luc Donckerwolke, the G90 Wingback is much more than a design study. It’s the connective tissue between the company’s emerging Magma lineup and its ultra-bespoke One of One program. That alone should make legacy brands sweat; Genesis is doing in a decade what took others half a century.

A Familiar Flagship, Reimagined for Performance

Built on the unmodified G90 platform—with its 3.2-meter wheelbase and stately 5.1-meter overall length—the Wingback Concept stretches the familiar into something far more provocative. Genesis retains the Crest Grille, Parabolic Line, and unmistakable Two-Line lighting signature, but the volume knob is turned way up.

The front end wears a more sculpted bumper stamped with the Magma insignia, flanked by canards and gaping lower intakes that look ready to inhale entire weather systems. Flared arches push the stance outward, housing bespoke 22-inch wheels wrapped in low-profile rubber.

In profile, that Parabolic Line flows into a stretched roofline that trades the G90 sedan’s conservative decklid for a long, sloping grand tourer wagon silhouette. Out back, the tailgate is framed by two spoilers and anchored by a motorsport-style diffuser—Genesis signaling that performance and luxury need not be mutually exclusive.

This one doesn’t rely on the brand’s signature Magma Orange, either. Instead, the deep green finish offers a quieter but more confident presence, underscoring Donckerwolke’s repeated refrain: “Magma is much more than a color.” For Genesis, Magma is a philosophy—a blend of Korean restraint, balance, and ambition. “Magma does not shout; it invites,” he says. That’s not something you often hear in a segment obsessed with shock value.

A Cabin Where Performance and Luxury Share the Same Air

Inside, the Wingback Concept stays firmly rooted in Genesis’ comfort-first ethos while threading in Magma’s performance DNA. The quilted Chamude upholstery (a suede-like synthetic) gets subtle green Magma stitching along the seats, doors, dash, and steering wheel. Embroidered Magma logos on the aggressively bolstered seats quietly hint at power waiting beneath the surface—an appropriate metaphor given the name.

Even without powertrain details, the message is clear: Magma is Genesis’ answer to the AMG/M Division/Black Series world, but reframed through a lens of elegance rather than aggression.

The Future: No Typology Monoculture

Donckerwolke used the concept reveal to take a swipe at the SUV arms race currently consuming the industry. With SUVs everywhere, he argues, the pendulum will swing back. “This is when other typologies of cars are going to become attractive again,” he says, warning against a “monoculture” of sameness.

Genesis seems determined to lead that shift. The Wingback Concept won’t live alone—it previews a Magma expansion spanning sports cars, coupes, convertibles, and more. All are intended to embody what Donckerwolke describes as an “iron fist in a velvet glove.” Power and control cloaked in elegance.

More Than a Showpiece

The G90 Wingback Concept isn’t just a tenth-anniversary celebration. It’s a thesis. Ten years in, Genesis is no longer content to prove it belongs in the luxury space. Now it wants to redefine what luxury performance looks like—emotionally resonant, globally ambitious, and unmistakably Korean.

If this is the next chapter of Genesis’ story, the rest of the industry should pay attention. The Wingback isn’t shouting. But it’s definitely not whispering, either.

Source: Genesis