Turnaround at the top of the Volkswagen group. After seven years at the helm of the group, the CEO and chairman of the management board Herbert Diess unexpectedly leaves his post A forced exit wanted by the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen. His place, from 1 September 2022, will be taken by Oliver flower, who will also remain at the helm of Porsche after the planned IPO of the German car group's brand. Blume, 54, joined the Volkswagen Group in 1994 and has since held management roles at the brands Audi, Seat, Volkswagen and Porsche. It has been since 2015 CEO of Porsche Ag and member of the management board of the group since 2018.
The Supervisory Board also established that the Group's Chief Financial Officer, Arno Antlitz, will also assume the role of COO and will support Blume in the operations.
The difficult months of Diess
Diess' farewell comes after difficult months for him. The manager had taken over the fortunes of the German automaker in 2015, the most difficult period in the company's history. He had been entrusted with the task of reviving the group afterwards the emissions scandal that he risked destroying the company. In recent months, Diess had suffered heavy attacks by trade unions due to hypotheses about possible mass layoffs (about 30 thousand) aimed at increasing the group's profitability and supporting the electrification process. Several controversies had also emerged over some strategic choices that had not initially been shared by the Piëch and Porsche families, the shareholders who control Volkswagen, including the leadership and performance of the subsidiary Cariad, specialized in the development of automotive software. By December, his role had been partially downsized, with direct responsibility for the Chinese market having passed into other hands. However, Diess had received the management of the software, an area of fundamental importance for Volkswagen.
“During his tenures as Chairman of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand and as Group CEO, Herbert Diess has played a key role in driving the company's transformation forward. The group and its brands are vital for the future; its ability to innovate and its profitability have been strengthened. Herbert Diess impressively demonstrated how quickly and consistently he was able to implement far-reaching transformation processes. He not only steered the company through extremely turbulent waters, but he also implemented a fundamentally new strategy,” said Hans Dieter Poetsch, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, thanking Diess for his work leading the group.
“Oliver Blume has demonstrated his operational and strategic skills in various positions within the group and in different brands and has managed Porsche financially, technologically and culturally with great success for seven consecutive years. From the point of view of the Supervisory Board, he is now the right person to lead the group and further improve the customer focus and positioning of its brands and products,” added Hans Dieter Poetsch speaking of the new CEO.
