Daimler small car subsidiary loses boss: Why Annette Winkler on smart leaves

05/31/2018

Daimler’s small car subsidiary loses boss Why Annette Winkler on smart leaves

DPA

Smart boss Annette Winkler made in a Smart Brabus tailor

On stage, she sold her small car brand as energetic as passionate, in interviews they also like to fire off a counter-salvo: Lack of enthusiasm for their small car brand could not accuse Smart boss Annette Winkler really. Now has the lively 58-year-old her departure as a smart boss initiated – as surprising as unpretentious. By press release gave Daimler Yesterday announced that Winkler “from the end of September their task as the leader Smart finished. A successor want the Stuttgarter only post at a later date,

With this Daimler loses one Flagship Manager, Although Winkler was not on the Daimler Board. But at auto shows Winkler frequently stepped into the spotlight alongside Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche. In her eight years as a smart boss, Winkler was probably one of the female executives at Daimler who showed the strongest public presence.

For almost one and a half years, the 58-year-old Winkler is still separating from her 60th birthday – the age limit at which the Stuttgart people like to say goodbye to their top managers in the direction of retirement. For the top of the board, however, this is currently not the case: Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche is currently 65 years old – his contract runs until the end of 2019.

Why, then, the premature departure of Winkler? Officially, the smart boss justifies her departure: Executives must recognize the right time, when they hand over the leadership to the next generation. And in her case this time had come now.

That sounds like the principle to go better when it’s the most beautiful – or at least reasonably good conditions prevail. This version support insiders at the Stuttgart carmaker. According to information from manager-magazin.de Winkler should have already explained several weeks ago in a small circle, to consider a quick farewell. She should have done this of her own free will – probably because the signs for the quarters were not too rosy for her.

Headwind for Smart freshens in coming quarters

For in the coming months, Smart, which was the problem child of the Stuttgart for many years, can expect some headwinds. Daimler wants its small car brand in no timeto make the pure electric car brand – Smart wants to build exclusively vehicles with battery drive by 2020. The demand for electric city cars is high throughout Europe and also in Germany.

But according to the circles Smart is currently supplied with too few batteries and electric motors. The The result is long waiting times: So the E-Smart production in Germany already for this year – and for the first months of 2019 completely sold out. Smart has underestimated the demand and planned too conservative, it says from the group – and for the next few quarters is not too much to do there.

The big conversion to e-drive apparently also affects the sales of conventional vehicles. By the end of April 2018, a good 9 percent fewer smarts were sold than in the same period last year. With the switch to battery-only, smart sales will tend to decline in the coming quarters, or at best stagnate – a scenario that is unlikely to be too attractive for Winkler.

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