The company surprisingly announced on Friday evening that the 63-year-old had agreed with the supervisory board to leave on September 1st. Successor is to be Porsche boss Oliver Blume. The decision was made “mutually”, it said in Wolfsburg.
“Dr. Oliver Blume will take over as CEO and will also continue in his function as CEO of Dr. Ing. hc F. Porsche AG,” the group said in a statement to the financial markets. At a meeting, the inspectors also decided that VW-CFO Arno Antlitz supported the former Porsche driver Blume “in day-to-day operations”.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hans Dieter Pötsch thanked Diess. “During his time as CEO of the Volkswagen brand and of the Group, he played a key role in driving forward the transformation of the company.” This pushed the conversion of VW making significant progress in e-mobility. However, there have recently been a number of problems, especially with the sluggish and increasingly expensive development of in-house software and IT systems.
Blume had long been considered a possible successor to Diess. His name had been mentioned several times behind the scenes when a conflict arose between the VWboss and the powerful works council about possible new savings programs last year. Even before that, there had been violent differences of opinion with parts of the supervisory board about the further strategy and about a possible drastic job cut at Europe’s largest car manufacturer.
Source: Nachrichten
