Business at the Audi car company is anything but smooth. CEO Gernot Döllner, who has been in office for almost a year, has to manage a model offensive with which the brand wants to build on old successes. Weak demand in Europe is exacerbating capacity utilization problems in the factories, and the factory in Brussels will most likely close. At the same time, one change follows the next in management, now also in another top position on the board. Not just atmospheric problems As can be heard at the headquarters in Ingolstadt, sales manager Hildegard Wortmann will be leaving the company. There had already been speculation about the future of the 57-year-old manager. Internally it is considered controversial and many find it difficult to deal with. Atmospheric problems are not said to have been the final deciding factor; rather, the numbers provided the pressure. As head of sales, Wortmann’s contribution to the misery is not exactly small, with sales down 8 percent in the first half of the year. It is now emphasized that she is leaving at her own initiative, and under no circumstances should the impression of being thrown out be created. The “Manager Magazin” first reported on Wortmann’s departure. Accordingly, she will be replaced by 50-year-old Marco Schubert on September 1st. He currently works for the sports car manufacturer Porsche, which, like Audi, is part of the Volkswagen Group. The Audi supervisory board had put the topic on the agenda for its meeting on Friday, but no communication had been made available at the time of going to press for this issue. Signals had already increased weeks ago that something was moving. Martin Sander, most recently head of the Ford factory in Cologne, has returned to the VW Group and become head of sales for the Wolfsburg parent brand. This is remarkable given that he only left the company three years ago – also because things were said to have broken down with Wortmann. Her designated successor, Schubert, is also said to have once left Audi for Porsche after an argument with her. Wortmann has denied this.More on the topicIn the VW Group, she was one of a group of managers that the former CEO Herbert Diess poached from his former employer BMW. Markus Duesmann, former BMW purchasing director and then CEO of Audi, was also one of them. Diess wanted to build a circle of confidants who would help him renew VW and Audi. But the harmony was fragile and the problems came to a head. Diess was replaced two years ago by the new CEO Oliver Blume, and Duesmann also had to leave. Now the time has come for Wortmann.
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