Porsche CEO Oliver Blume is set to take over for Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess’s long-tenured position as Chairman of the Group Board of Management, as detailed in a press release on Friday.
Blume will also remain Chairman of the Board of Management of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, while Volkswagen CFO Ano Antlitz is set to take on the role of COO of the board.
The moves become effective on September 1, 2022, with Diess resigning at the same time.
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess to Hold Reddit AMA on February 16 https://t.co/OahYDBgVgm
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) February 11, 2022
In a statement, Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hans Dieter Pötsch said, “During his tenure as Chairman of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars Brand and as Chairman of the Group Board of Management, Herbert Diess played a key role in advancing the transformation of the company.”
Pötsch continued, “The Group and its brands are viable for the future; its innovative capabilities and earning power are strengthened. Mr. Diess impressively demonstrated the speed at which and consistency with which he was able to carry out far-reaching transformation processes. Not only did he steer the company through extremely turbulent waters, but he also implemented a fundamentally new strategy.”
Deiss has tried hard to push Volkswagen to emulate the success of Tesla and the latter’s electrification strategy.
On Friday, prior to the announcement, Diess wrote on LinkedIn, “After a really stressful first half of 2022 many of us are looking forward to a well-deserved summer break.”
“The first six months were even more demanding than the already difficult year 2021. In addition to COVID, which struck our Chinese colleagues extremely hard, we have a war in Europe. Production was still held back by semiconductor shortages and because of a world under stress, we saw many other supply challenges and soaring raw material and energy prices.”
Earlier this month, Volkswagen broke ground on a site in Germany with a new $20 billion investment into electric vehicle (EV) batteries under its new company PowerCo.
