New VW Brand Chief Vows to Counter Car Industry's Digital Rivals - Bloomberg
The new head of Volkswagen AG’s namesake car brand pledged to pursue the company’s strategy of developing technology while limiting cost growth as it counters rivals emerging from the digital industry. we want to be in the lead of this exciting development,” Diess said, in his first comments to become public since joining VW this month. Diess took charge of the VW brand, the largest division at Europe’s biggest automaker, on July 1. Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn is ceding management of the unit to Diess to focus on running the group after surviving a power... Winterkorn has laid out a strategy for the brand to improve earnings by 5 billion euros ($5. 5 billion) by 2017. Winterkorn, 68, has gradually been preparing the company, the world’s second-largest carmaker, for a change in leadership by shoring... Diess, who was previously development chief at Munich-based BMW AG, is the second executive that Volkswagen has lured from a German competitor within a year. VW hired Andreas Renschler away from Daimler AG to become its truck-division chief. Diess became BMW’s development chief in April 2012 after running the luxury-car producer’s purchasing, where his role in reducing component and supply costs by at least 4 billion euros helped the company weather the global recession. Prior to arriving at BMW in 1996, Diess worked at car-parts maker Robert Bosch GmbH. Source: www.bloomberg.com
