New Seat boss Wayne Griffiths
VW boss Herbert Diess praised the Seat boss as one of the best managers in the entire group.
(Photo: dpa)
Barcelona Seat manager Wayne Griffiths has been appointed the new president of the Spanish VW subsidiary in the middle of the severe corona crisis. Griffiths will assume the office in addition to his previous role as director of sales and marketing on October 1, the company said. He has been running the new Seat sports brand Cupra since January.
Griffiths is replacing Carsten Isensee, who had taken over the post as interim president since the resignation of Seat boss Luca de Meo in January. Isensee will remain CFO, the company emphasized.
Griffiths is now facing the difficult task of keeping Seat on course despite the severe economic slump in Corona hotspot Spain, wrote the newspaper “La Vanguardia” on Thursday.
VW boss Herbert Diess described the new Seat president at the presentation at Seat’s main location in Martorell near Barcelona on Wednesday evening as one of the best managers in the entire group, as “La Vanguardia” reported. Griffiths has made a decisive contribution to the fact that Seat achieved records in sales figures in recent years and was able to establish the Cupra brand.
Within the VW Group, Seat was hit particularly hard by the consequences of the pandemic. In August, sales fell by 24.5 percent compared to the same month last year.
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