Now it’s official: The previous one AudiPurchasing manager Dirk Große-Loheide (58) will take over the management of the entire group purchasing with effect from January 1, 2023, as the company announced on Tuesday. The manager will also be appointed to the extended group management and appointed to the board of purchasing for the Volkswagen passenger car brand. His predecessor Murat Aksel (50) is moving to the commercial vehicle subsidiary MAN as Head of Purchasing.
Aksel has been responsible for purchasing on the Group Executive Board since January 2021. The manager, also known as the “cost killer”, was unable to get the delivery bottlenecks in semiconductors under control in the course of the global chip crisis, which is why criticism of him grew.
Herbert Diess was Aksel’s greatest advocate
With the change at the top of the group, Aksel finally lost his greatest advocate in Wolfsburg, Herbert Diess (64). Blume naturally presents the restructuring in a more positive light: the reorganization is intended to strengthen the purchasing function at group level and in two core areas, he explained. At the volume brand VW and at MAN, two top managers with experience in crises would be responsible for the central task in Grosse-Loheide and Aksel.
It remains to be seen whether Aksel can really overcome the delivery bottlenecks at MAN. Missing wiring harnesses from the Ukraine had given the commercial vehicle manufacturer a hard time after the Russian attack; the company had to shut down the tapes for weeks. Aksel is now to secure the supply of parts for the ramp-up of heavy commercial vehicle production. After all, for him it is a return to his long-standing professional home in Munich, where he worked from 2009 to 2017 bmw had worked.
Große-Loheide has been head of purchasing at the Ingolstadt-based premium subsidiary Audi since April. Before that, he was responsible for procurement on the brand board at Volkswagen, Aksel’s predecessor. The manager should continue purchasing at Audi until his successor has been settled. Große-Loheide began his career in 1990 at Volkswagen.