Skip to main content

Volkswagen Group Continues Structural and Staff Realignment

  • Functions in CEO’s area of responsibility reorganized
  • Müller: “Faster decision-making and more efficient action”

The Volkswagen Group is becoming more streamlined and speeding up its internal decision-making process. To that end, functions in the area of responsibility headed by CEO Matthias Müller are being restructured. The number of top managers reporting direct to the CEO has been almost halved, and new appointments to several posts will take effect in the first quarter of 2016.

The CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, Matthias Müller, said: “These structural changes speed up the decision-making process, reduce complexity and increase efficiency. The Group Board of Management can focus more closely than previously on overarching issues of the future, safeguard cross-brand synergies and further develop overall strategy.” Müller underscored: “The team in the CEO’s area of responsibility is almost complete, with excellent colleagues from within and outside the Group taking up the new posts. We are focusing in particular on the technological changes that impact the future of mobility – from electrification to the digital transformation. Our goal is to play a decisive role in shaping the transformation of the automobile. Our new lean structure will enable us to develop the considerable potential of our Company, its brands and employees to great effect. We will see faster decision-making and more efficient action.”

Under these structural changes, the following appointments take effect in the CEO’s area of responsibility during the first quarter of 2016:

Dr. Ulrich Eichhorn (54) will lead Group Research and Development. Eichhorn holds a PhD in mechanical engineering. Having started his career at Ford, he was Head of Volkswagen Group Research from 2000 to 2003. He was appointed Board Member for Engineering at Bentley in 2003 before taking over as Managing Director of the German Association of the Automotive Industry in 2012.

Fred Kappler (57) will assume responsibility for Group Sales. He studied business science and joined Volkswagen as a trainee in 1982. He held various responsibilities in the export section of Sales at Volkswagen AG from 1983. He was given responsibility for sales in North-West Europe at the Volkswagen brand from 1995. He moved to China as First Vice President and CFO of FAW-Volkswagen in 1997. He became Head of Sales Germany for the Volkswagen brand in 2000, Board Member for Sales at Škoda Auto in 2004, Head of Sales Volkswagen Genuine Parts in 2009, and Head of Group Services in 2011.

Michael Mauer (53) will lead Group Design – in addition to his present function at Porsche. Mauer studied vehicle design and began his career at Mercedes-Benz in 1986, holding various functions until 2000, including design responsibility for the A-Class, SLK and SL models as well as Smart design. He moved to Saab as Executive Director Design in 2000 and was also given responsibility for Advanced Design at General Motors Europe in 2003. He has been Head of the Design Department at Porsche AG since 2004 and was also given responsibility for styling the 2007 Porsche Cayenne, the Panamera and the 918 Spyder.

Wolfram Thomas (59) takes charge of Group Production. Thomas holds an engineering degree and has been with the Volkswagen Group for 35 years. Following various management functions at Volkswagen, SEAT and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Thomas became manager of Volkswagen’s Kassel plant in 1998. He was appointed Executive Vice-President of Production at SEAT in 2002, becoming Deputy President of the brand in 2009, and was subsequently named Group Chief Officer for the Environment, Energy and New Business Areas in 2012.

Ralf-Gerhard Willner (54) will lead Group Product and Modular Toolkit Strategy. Willner is a trained toolmaker and holds a degree in automotive engineering. He began his career at Audi in Ingolstadt in 1987. Following various management functions at Audi and Volkswagen, he was named Head of Development Vehicle Concepts at Audi in Ingolstadt in 2003, assuming responsibility for the same task at Volkswagen Passenger Cars in 2007 before becoming Technical Director at Italdesign Giugiaro in 2010 and returning to Audi AG as Head of Vehicle Concepts in 2013.

The post Volkswagen Group Continues Structural and Staff Realignment appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/1OaBrwh
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...
2 comments
Read more

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...
Post a Comment
Read more