Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen Group and CEO of Volkswagen as a brand, is stepping down. He is succeeded by Porsche’s Oliver Blume.
Diess (63) will not get a different role within Volkswagen, but will leave the company as a whole on September 1, Reuters reports. That is remarkable, since in the recent past attempts have been made often and successfully to keep Diess on as the big boss after clashes with the staff.
Yet, according to Automotive News, it is precisely this apparent friction between Diess’ management style and the culture at Volkswagen that is the reason for looking for a new CEO. Diess, who, according to the same message, is stepping down by mutual consent, is reportedly being succeeded by Oliver Blume (54, photo 2). Blume has been in charge of Porsche since 2015 and is seen as a more traditional leader than Diess, according to Reuters. Also striking: the change of power was already announced in 2020, but then did not take place.
Fresh wind after Dieselgate
Herbert Diess took office as Volkswagen CEO in 2018, with the highest goal of blowing a breath of fresh air through the group after the misery of the diesel scandal. That seemed to work well. Herbert Diess was particularly ambitious in the field of electrification, did not shy away from major and painful reforms and was not afraid to admit that he saw Tesla as a very serious rival. At times, Diess and Elon Musk even went out together.
The colorful CEO also liked to show himself at other times. For example, we remember a holiday with the then brand new ID3, including cheerful snapshots with daughter Caro. A year later, Diess went on holiday in this way again and was concerned about errors of charging network Ionity, where Volkswagen itself has a big finger in the pie. Want to know more about Herbert Diess? We already described it extensively in 2018.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl