Volkswagen rebuilds board

The Volkswagen Group has called on old and new hands to fill senior executive positions as it rebuilds its culture after the Dieselgate scandal.

With its executive group all but wiped out through suspensions, retirements and competitive departures, VW has announced five new management board members, covering development, sales, design, production and product.

The executives will have oversight on all of its brands, from Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen to premium brands Audi and Porsche and exclusive brands Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti.

In a series of moves made to streamline the way the company runs, the number of managers directly reporting to Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller has been nearly halved.

“These structural changes speed up the decision-making process, reduce complexity and increase efficiency,” Müller said.

The most critical of the new board members will be Ulrich Eichhorn. The respected German will be the board member for research and development for the Group, taking the position vacated by the retired Ulrich Hackenberg.

The 54-year-old was the boss of Bentley’s engineering department until he left to head up the VDA, Germany’s automotive industry association, in 2012. He has kept close ties with the Volkswagen Group throughout and is seen as a brilliant engineer with an extraordinarily wide range of interests and knowledge.

Michael Mauer will follow his former Porsche boss, Matthias Müller (pictured), on to the Volkswagen Group’s management board, taking over from Walter da Silva as Group design boss.

The 53-year-old German cut his teeth at General Motors and Saab before joining Porsche in 2004.

Group Sales board member Christian Klingler left Volkswagen in September for reasons unrelated to Dieselgate, and his position has been taken by Fred Kappler.

Kappler, 57, joins the board after heading up the Volkswagen Group’s aftermarket division, and has previously held senior positions at Volkswagen’s FAW joint-venture in China and at Skoda.

Other new additions to the board include Wolfram Thomas, 59, who is a 35-year career Volkswagen Group man and has been given control of production, while Ralf-Gerhard Willner moves from heading Audi’s vehicle concepts division to run Volkswagen Group product and modular architectures.