Ferdinand Pich Objects Appointment Of Nieces To Volkswagen Board

Ferdinand Piëch isn’t Volkswagen’s chairman anymore, but he doesn’t want a couple of his relatives to replace him and his wife on the board, either.

After Piëch and his wife, Ursula, left the supervisory board after a failed attempt to oust CEO Martin Winterkorn from his position last week, the board’s members appointed Louise Kiessling and Julia Kuhn-Piëch – Piëch’s nieces – to fill the vacated seats on the behest of the company’s management board, Automotive News Europe reports. The appointments were immediately approved by the local court in Braunschweig.

The elder Piëch made his objection to their appointment, citing their limited industry experience as his reason. Instead, he wants former BMW and Premier Automotive Group exec Wolfgang Reitzle and former Siemens chief Brigitte Ederer, with Reitzle a likely candidate to fill the chairman position.

Little is known about Kiessling and Kuhn-Piëch thus far. The former is an Austrian businesswoman who studied vehicle design in London, the latter works in real estate. Both were chosen by the entire family outside of Ferdinand Piëch, with their appointments maintaining the balance of power of the Porsche-Piëch clan.

Whoever does end up in the vacated seats, they will serve out the remainder of Ferdinand and Ursula Piëch’s term, set to end in 2017.

[Photo credit: Roger/ Flickr/ CC BY-SA 2.0]