Dieselgate: Müller locked in as Volkswagen CEO
Time for a rebuild and restructure as Porsche boss takes helm of trouble car-makerVolkswagen will split into four groups as it confirms Porsche boss Matthias Müller as its new Volkswagen Group CEO.
Admitting he faces an uphill battle to regain public and regulatory trust after the intentional emissions cheat that spread across 11 million cars worldwide, Müller replaces the outgoing Dr Martin Winterkorn with immediate effect.
The 62-year-old Müller was confirmed in the role at the most critical Supervisory Board meeting in the company’s history.
“My most urgent task is to win back trust for the Volkswagen Group by leaving no stone unturned and with maximum transparency, as well as drawing the right conclusions from the current situation,” he said.
“Under my leadership, Volkswagen will do everything it can to develop and implement the most stringent compliance and governance standards in our industry.
“If we manage to achieve that then the Volkswagen Group, with its innovative strength, its strong brands and above all its competent and highly motivated team, has the opportunity to emerge from this crisis stronger than before,” he claimed,” Müller stated.
Müller will face plenty of challenges, but he does so with the support of former Skoda CEO, Prof Dr Winfried Vahland, who joins the Volkswagen board and moves to head a newly combined North American region, consisting of the three NAFTA countries, the USA, Canada and Mexico.
After a protest from US dealers, current Volkswagen US boss Michael Horn will remain as the US CEO and President, while Porsche’s director of sales and marketing, Bernhard Maier takes over at Skoda.
With Müller moving to the big chair, Development Director Wolfgang Hatz suspended and Maier gone to the Czech Republic, Porsche looks bereft of leadership.
That’s what the Supervisory Board though, too, which is why it is now combined with Bentley and Bugatti in a Porsche Group specializing in sports and mid-engined architectures.
Volkswagen AG’s board member for sales and marketing, Christian Klingler, is leaving with immediate effect, through differences of opinion on strategy that aren’t related to the current crisis. He will be replaced by SEAT Chairman, Jürgen Stackmann, who, in turn, will be replaced by Audi’s sales and marketing boss, the 48-year-old rising star, Luca de Meo.
And the Volkswagen Group production department has been disbanded, with immediate effect, giving its various brands and regions more autonomy in manufacturing.
Müller is a success story, born in Chemnitz, in the old East Germany, in 1953 and going to school in Audi’s home town of Ingolstadt, where he completed an apprenticeship as a toolmaker. He then went to Munich University to study computer science, coming out with a Master’s degree and rejoining Audi in 1978, rising through roles like Head of Systems Analysis in 1984 to Head of Project Management for the 1993 A3. By 1995, he was heading Project Management at Audi, Seat and Lamborghini.
If his time line intersected with the cheat code at any point, it would have been when he moved to Wolfsburg in 2007 to become Head of Project Management for the entire Volkswagen Group.
Müller has been at Porsche since 2010 and is contracted as CEO until February, 2020.
Dieselgate related reading:
Müller locked in as Volkswagen CEO
BMW forced to deny emissions rigging
Volkswagen boss Winterkorn to go as crisis spreads
Dieselgate worsens, 11m vehicles could be affected
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