Internally, the future VW boss was one of the declared opponents of a greatly enlarged group board from the start.
(Photo: Reuters)
Dusseldorf, Berlin Under the new CEO Oliver Blume, the entire Volkswagen Group is to become faster and more efficient. That applies all the more to the board of directors, which Blume will reduce by two posts on his first day of work this Thursday. This was confirmed by Wolfsburg group circles to the Handelsblatt. Officially, Volkswagen did not want to comment on the personal details. “No comment,” said a spokesman.
In the future, Blume wants to do without separate board departments for sales and purchasing. Hildegard Wortmann and Murat Aksel must therefore resign from the top management body of the VW Group.
Wortmann only took over the sales department on February 1, Aksel has been in charge of group purchasing since the beginning of last year.
Blume’s predecessor Herbert Diess had increased the group’s board of directors to twelve members at the turn of the year. That is an extraordinarily large number of board members compared to other industrial groups.
Internally, Blume was one of the declared opponents of such a greatly enlarged group board of directors, to which he himself had previously belonged as CEO of Porsche. “The board must be more compact so that we can make decisions more quickly,” said Blume, according to participants, in an internal meeting a few weeks ago.
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Porsche AG, the home of the new VW CEO, manages with a total of seven board members. Blume wants to lead the Wolfsburg group and the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer in a personal union as CEO.
The head of sales loses her position on the group board.
(Photo: imago images / STAR MEDIA)
So the reduction in the size of the board itself comes as no surprise to Wolfsburg insiders. But the timing is very good. Group observers had expected the new VW boss to take a little longer and only make the downsizing at the end of the year.
However, when he took office, Blume was given a free hand by the Supervisory Board and can therefore make important decisions immediately.
Without Herbert Diess and the two previous board members Wortmann and Aksel, the top body now has nine members. Even so, the VW board is still comparatively large. Blume could therefore further reduce the number of board members in the future, as is being considered according to corporate circles.
Hauke Stars will be the only woman on the VW board in the future
The contract of Legal and Integrity Director Manfred Döss expires in just over two years. The group’s chief lawyer will also be 65 at the beginning of next year. It is considered quite likely that this board department will be dissolved after Döss’s possible departure.
Hauke Stars has been in charge of the new IT department within the top VW management committee since February 1st. But this department does not have to exist permanently under a VW boss Oliver Blume. However, Stars will probably not lose their position at the moment, because according to the quota system, at least one woman must be represented on the Wolfsburg group board.
Hildegard Wortmann and Murat Aksel will probably remain with the company despite their departure from the Group Executive Board and will continue their previous responsibilities at brand level.
The manager has been in charge of corporate purchasing since the beginning of last year.
(Photo: Bernhardhuber)
Wortmann was not only a member of the board of directors for the entire group, but is also responsible for sales on the Audi board. The same pattern applies to Murat Aksel: He heads the purchasing department of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand.
In future, however, the two will no longer report to CEO Oliver Blume, but to brand bosses Markus Duesmann (Audi) and Thomas Schäfer (Volkswagen Passenger Cars).
Volkswagen’s global top management meets this Thursday for its annual meeting in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. There, Blume wants to explain to the group’s 500 or so most important executives how he imagines the future of Volkswagen and how he intends to lead Europe’s largest car manufacturer in the future.
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