He was sitting on an ejection seat, but his departure was nonetheless a surprise, not to say a clap of thunder. Herbert Diess, the emblematic and controversial boss of Volkswagen (VW), will leave office on 1er September, announced the German automobile giant, after a meeting of its supervisory board on Friday, July 22. Aged 63, Mr. Diess will be succeeded by Oliver Blume, 54, the current chairman of the board of Porsche, one of the twelve brands of the VW group.
The press release announcing the departure of Mr. Diess may well specify that it was decided ” from a common agreement “, the formula should not be misleading. Arrived at the head of VW in the spring of 2018, this man known for his brittle speech and his rough management had been in the hot seat for more than two years.
“Break down old encrusted structures”
In June 2020, already, he had narrowly saved his post after having to apologize for having accused certain members of the supervisory board of having “illegally” leaked information to the press. Six months later, he had the group in turmoil by publishing a long forum on the social network LinkedIn under the title: “This is how we change Volkswagen. In this vitriolic text, he notably deplored not having succeeded in “breaking down old encrusted structures” of the company, “especially at the group’s headquarters in Wolfsburg” (Lower Saxony). The charge had been particularly disliked by the very powerful Betriebsrat, the works council of group employees, controlled by the IG Metall trade union.
A new storm had erupted in September 2021 when, during a meeting of the supervisory board, Mr. Diess had suggested that there were 30,000 too many jobs in the group, which has 660,000 worldwide, including about half in Germany. Faced with the emotion aroused by his remarks, he had to specify that it was only a “extreme scenario”in the event that the company does not succeed in completing its transformation towards electric and digital, the main mission for which this former BMW employee was chosen to lead the Volkswagen brand, in 2015, then the group, three years later late.
Also in the fall of 2021, his image deteriorated further when he announced that he would not attend a staff meeting to go to a meeting with investors in the United States. If he had finally backtracked, this episode had contributed a little more to degrading his relations with the essential employee committee and their new president, Daniela Cavallo, the first woman appointed to this highly strategic position, in office since the spring of 2021. .
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