Herbert Diess and Hans Dieter Pötsch
There is currently little to suggest that the CEO and the Supervisory Board could find each other again.
In Wolfsburg an unwritten law applies: The Volkswagen group and the brand Volkswagen should be managed by the same person if possible. The employee side in particular has repeatedly pushed for this personal union. After all, it ensures that the German car factories – the majority of which are VW locations – are given sufficient listening right up to the top of the corporate board.
Volkswagen is now deviating from the brazen principle of joint management of the Group and the brand. CEO Herbert Diess has to hand over the position at the brand, where Ralf Brandstätter is now the new CEO. The fact that this extraordinary change of personnel occurs is also expressly approved by the employee side.
This shows how much the situation in Wolfsburg has worsened in recent weeks. The supervisory board no longer believes that Herbert Diess the operational difficulties at the Volkswagen brand for the foreseeable future. The start-up problems with the new Golf are so great and the start of sales of the new ID.3 electric car is so shaky that with Ralf Brandstätter a new man is supposed to make the decisive changes.
In fact, Herbert Diess paid too little attention to the Volkswagen brand and its most pressing problems. As CEO of the brand, one of his key tasks is to ensure that the announced start-up of new cars remains on schedule. Technically, the latest models must also keep what was previously promised in colorful advertising messages.
That the board This removes direct responsibility for the Volkswagen brand, is a unique affront that could not have been bigger. The supervisory board expresses the mistrust of the group boss: the supervisory board no longer sees diess as the right man for the brand, the core of the entire group, who still represents more than half of all sales.
CEO on call
It is astonishing that Herbert Diess simply accepts this deprivation of trust. Because if the supervisory board withdraws the brand from it, then the trust can no longer be particularly great that it will also get the group’s problems under control.
In the current situation, there is little evidence in Wolfsburg that the CEO and the Supervisory Board could find each other again. The deep crack between the two sides will hardly be able to be cemented. Herbert Diess is now only a CEO on call for the Group.
More: VW boss accuses supervisory boards of breach of law – overseers discussed this throw-out.