Hero MotoCorp has appointed Markus Braunsperger to head its R&D division. The division is coming up at Kukas near Jaipur, the foundation stone for which was laid in September, 2013 by vice chairman, Pawan Munjal in the presence of the company’s global technology partners Erik Buell of Erik Buell Racing, Alberto Strazzari of Engines Engineering, and Markus Feichtner of AVL.

Braunsperger is an ex-employee of BMW’s design division. A biker himself, Braunsperger was also in charge of the R&D team at BMW’s two-wheeler arm, BMW Motorrad. Braunsperger was involved as project manager for the BMW 3-, 5-, 7-series, X3 and X5. Markus Braunsperger will begin work at the Hero Centre for Global Innovation and Research & Design, Jaipur this October.

Last year, Hero hired Markus Feichtner from Austrian firm AVL, to lead the Engine Design & Development division within Hero’s R&D department.

If these recent appointments within Hero are anything to go by, the bike manufacturer is clearly looking to strengthen its product development arm. Hero MotoCorp also has plans to introduce brand new products over different segments, first of which will be the HX 250R; a quarter-litre bike likely to be launched this festive season.