Volkswagen's CFO Poetsch Will Likely Be Its Next Chairman
Porsche Automobil Holding SE announced Thursday that it would propose its CFO Hans Dieter Poetsch to succeed Berthold Huber as chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board. The proposal was supported by Volkswagen AG.
Huber was appointed interim chairman for the German automotive giant after Ferdinand Piech was ousted in a dustup among leadership.
The announcement comes only a few days after Volkswagen said it extended its contract with its current CEO, Martin Winterkorn, for two more years and effectively ending his bid to replace Piech. Winterkorn and Piech publicly feuded over VW’s direction, eventually leading to Piech’s surprise resignation as chairman in April.
As a member of the board of majority shareholder in VW’s parent company, Porsche SE, Piech voted alongside the rest of the board unanimously to approve Poetsch as proposed chairman.
According to Automotive News, Poetsch is a relative insider for VW’s chairman position. As chief financial officer since 2003, Poetsch would be a non-polarizing figure with detailed knowledge of Volkswagen’s day-to-day operations.
Analysts earlier suspected that Winterkorn’s retention may open the door to an outsider to be placed in the chairman’s seat.
Poetsch was appointed CFO at Volkswagen in 2003, after leaving German engineering firm Durr AG, according to the automaker. Poetsch started his automotive career at BMW in 1979, working up to head of group controlling before he left in 1987.
Poetsch could be fully installed as chairman in November, at Volkswagen’s next general meeting.
More by Aaron Cole
Comments
Join the conversation
A bean-counter as the next big-cheese. I can hardly wait. That said, maybe he'll decide to cut their losses on the Phaeton and use the cash to accelerate development and build the CUV's VW badly needs? (It would be difficult for VW to build a slate of vehicles LESS suited for the US market unless they went to a lineup made of nothing but kei-cars and brown manual diesel wagons.)