As expected, Porsche chief Matthias Muller has been named as the new chief executive of the Volkswagen Group. He will therefore relinquish his role at Porsche but it remains to be seen who will fill his role with the German sports car maker.
Muller has been at the helm of Porsche since October 2010 and has helped boost sales and profitability of the German sports car brand thanks to a host of new models, particularly the Porsche Macan.
Discussing his new role, Muller said “My most urgent task is to win back trust for the Volkswagen Group—by leaving no stone unturned and with maximum transparency, as well as drawing the right conclusions from the current situation. Under my leadership, Volkswagen will do everything it can to develop and implement the most stringent compliance and governance standards in our industry.”
Alongside the appointment of Matthias Muller as CEO, the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen has announced an organisation-wide restructuring. As part of the restructuring, a new North American region for the company incorporating the United States, Mexico and Canada has been named. Additionally, the board will relinquish its production role within the conglomerate with the responsibility of production shifting to the individual brands.
The German company is of course under severe scrutiny after it emerged that its diesel-powered vehicles in the United States have been installed with software to make them appear more efficient during EPA testing. Approximately 11 million vehicles from Volkswagen are believed to have the software with 482,000 vehicles in the United States already tipped to be recalled.
Oh man. I do not envy him. He has a LOT to clean up.