The automaker Volkswagen gets a new sales director. Porsche’s USA boss Klaus Zellmer will replace Jürgen Stackmann (58), who has long been controversial, in Wolfsburg, several participants confirmed to manager magazin. When asked, the company did not want to comment.
About Stackmann’s withdrawal was since a few months has been speculated. He had come to VW as Head of Sales in 2015 through board positions at Skoda and Seat, and in Wolfsburg has long been considered a guarantor of the positive development of the VW brand in recent years. Recently, however, he came under criticism. Among other things, there were different opinions on the board of directors about how strongly sales should be boosted with discounts, according to the company. There were also votes against Stackmann on the capital side of the supervisory board.
Zellmer has been leading Porsche’s North America organization since 2015. Internally, the position of USA boss is seen as a career springboard. Zellmer’s predecessor Detlef von Platen (56) is now the Chief Sales Officer of Porsche AG. And Peter Schwarzenbauer (60) moved from the US headquarters in Atlanta in 2008 Audi and took over the head of sales there. He later took on various board positions at a competitor BMW.
Volkswagenis because of theCorona crisisgot deep into the red. In the second quarter, the world’s largest automaker posted an operating loss of 1.7 billion euros before special items. A year ago there was still a profit of 5.1 billion on the books. Sales collapsed from April to June due to the rapidly falling sales by 37 percent to 41 billion euros; in the first half of the year the decline was 23 percent to 96 billion euros.
In the USA, Porsche’s USA boss Zellmer had to accept a sharp drop in sales in the second quarter. With 12,200 vehicles, the sports car manufacturer sold around 20 percent less than in the same period of the previous year. The main cause here was of course the Corona crisis.