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VW boss remains: Herbert Diess
Photo:
Josep LAGO / AFP
After several weeks of power struggle with parts of the supervisory board, VW CEO
Herbert Diess is
to keep his office.
In addition, however, the head of the Volkswagen core brand,
Ralf Brandstätter
, will move up to the board
in the new year
, as the company announced on Thursday.
In the future, Diess will primarily take care of strategic issues in the largest European car group, such as the new Cariad software division.
As of February 1,
Hauke Stars will
join
the top
committee as board member for the newly created department for IT and organization and Audi manager
Hildegard Wortmann
for sales, as manager magazin had already reported.
This increases the number of members next to Diess to eleven.
Chief
Legal
Counsel
Manfred Döss
will take over the department for integrity and law from the outgoing board member Hiltrud Werner.
Personnel director
Gunnar Kilian
received a new contract.
Brandstätter will be responsible for important business in China in the future
Management Board Chairman Herbert Diess is to retain control of the volume brands as a whole. However, from August 2022 on, Brandstätter will be responsible for the important and recently significantly weaker China business that was previously assigned to Diess. Skoda boss
Thomas Schäfer
will
then
take over
responsibility for the main brand VW Pkw on the group board
. There are also purchasing
board members
Murat Aksel
,
Oliver Blume
(sport and luxury),
Markus Duesmann
(premium),
Arno
Antlitz
(finances),
Thomas Schmall von Westerholt
(technology).
The decisions were preceded by speculation about Diess' future.
The mixed solution found should now be a compromise.
The situation at VW had been extremely tense since the end of September.
Supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch once again had to mediate intensively between all those involved.
There was another confrontation with the works council after Diess is said to have thought out loud in a meeting of the control committee about the possibly necessary cancellation of tens of thousands of jobs.
Previously, according to information from corporate circles, he had asked other managers for further savings proposals - bypassing the very influential workforce representation at VW.
more on the subject
VW works council boss Cavallo: Germany's most powerful car manager by Michael Freitag
Works council chief
Daniela Cavallo
had sharply attacked Diess internally as well as in a works meeting.
The state of Lower Saxony, as the second largest VW shareholder, had also indicated that it was no longer fully behind its communication strategy.
Prime Minister and co-supervisor Stephan Weil spoke of an atmosphere of "uncertainty that is spreading everywhere".
Supervisory Board approves five-year plan worth 159 billion euros
On Thursday, the supervisory board not only decided to reorganize the board of directors, but also, after weeks of back and forth with the works council, approved a budget of almost 160 billion euros for the next five years, with which Diess will convert Volkswagen into a technology provider based on the model of the US Electric car maker Tesla can accelerate.
In the new investment plan for the years 2022 to 2026, future investments, primarily for electromobility and digitalization, at 89 billion euros, make up the largest share of the total investments of 159 billion euros for the first time.
This is another clear increase compared to last year, when the total amount for new technologies reached 73 billion euros.
Volkswagen is aiming for every fourth vehicle sold by 2026 to have a battery-electric drive.
VW is converting more and more locations in its global plant network for the production of electric and hybrid vehicles.
At the same time, CEO Herbert Diess is relying on the expansion of the new Cariad division, which is intended to increase the proportion of the Group's own software systems.
la, rei / dpa