A press conference of the Volkswagen Group’s Supervisory Board is to be held today, on the afternoon of 9 December. Among other things, she is expected to resolve disagreements between the group’s leader, Herbert Diess, and the powerful unions. The result can be significant changes in management, which would also affect Czech Škoda.
Despite the fact that Herbert Diess won the contract extension until 2025 in the summer, his management style still does not suit powerful unions. The storm, for example, was triggered by a plan to lay off half of its employees at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. According to Diesse, the company must cut costs in order to compete with Tesla in terms of labor productivity. After all, not everyone in the company perceives Diess’s public admiration for Elon Musk positively.
Supervisory Board according to the latest German media information Diesse would not let go, even though such an opportunity was said to be on the table. Instead, there is to be a change in management, the VW board of directors is to be expanded so that the group boss can focus primarily on strategic decisions and leave operations to others.
According to German media reports, this means, above all, the establishment of a new position as a member of the Board of Directors for sales, which is one of the areas that Herbert Diess has been in charge of so far. This should be Hildegard Wortmann, who has previously held a similar position in the management of the Audi brand. Wortmann previously worked for Unilever and Calvin Klein and was also with BMW, as was Herbert Diess.
As part of the changes, a new man responsible for VW’s Chinese operations is also to be appointed. Huge and one of the key markets for VW has been complicated for the company lately. The company has canceled the planned return of the Seat brand, Škoda is failing and the success that VW promised there from ID.4 electric crossovers has not been very successful so far. According to Diess, this is due to a lack of chips, a recent analysis by the magazine auto motor and sport but it shows that this may also be because ID.4 for Chinese customers may not be attractive enough among domestic competing models.
According to the former messages The head of VW Group China, Stephan Wöllenstein, is due to close in the first of February next year. On the board of directors, the current head of the VW brand, Ralf Brandstätter, is responsible for China, and Herbert Diess has been in charge of the top management so far.
However, this will free up space in the management of the VW brand as such. According to Spiegel, its boss should be Thomas Schäfer, who has been leading the Czech Škoda since August 2020 and previously headed, among others, Volkswagen in South Africa. The German media is silent about who would take his position at the head of the Mladá Boleslav manufacturer.
It is said that a position of a member responsible for IT will also be newly established within the Board of Directors. The position should be taken by Hauke Stars, who previously worked for ThyssenKrupp, Hewlett Packard or the German stock exchange. The new person will also take care of legal matters on the board. Manfred Döss replaces Hiltruda Werner.
The VW Group’s Supervisory Board is to confirm the changes at a press conference scheduled for this afternoon. Representatives of VW owners, ie the Porsche and Piëch families, the state of Qatar, the German federal state of Lower Saxony, as well as trade union representatives, sit on the supervisory board.
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