2024-09-10 15:06:06
The German carmaker says it is facing major cuts. Now there are also changes in the management team.
In the midst of the crisis, the car manufacturer Volkswagen is replacing the finance director at its core brand VW Passenger Cars. The current finance director Patrik Andreas Mayer is to vacate the position in Wolfsburg for the finance director of the VW subsidiary Seat, David Powels, as a company spokeswoman confirmed upon request.
Manager Magazine had previously reported that Mayer is moving to Seat in Spain and will take over Powel’s duties there. Mayer has been CFO at the heart of Europe’s largest car company since October 2022.
The personnel change can be interpreted as a demotion for Mayer and a promotion for Powel: According to the report, VW sells about seven times as many cars as Seat. Mayer was previously formally Powel’s superior.
Powels’ advantage is said to have been that he has already implemented a tough restructuring process at Seat. However, he is said to have no experience at the Wolfsburg headquarters.
The management of the Volkswagen Group’s core brand VW announced a tougher austerity plan on Monday last week and no longer ruled out plant closures and redundancies. As part of this, the group has set itself a return target of 6.5 percentage points – in the second quarter, however, it was only 2.3 percent. Things are going much better at the Spanish subsidiary, from which David Powels is now moving to Wolfsburg: Seat generated a return of 5.2 percent in the same period.
VW boss Oliver Blume cited the difficult situation on the European car market and the deteriorating competitiveness of German production sites as the reason for the failure to achieve the goals. Critics accuse VW management of investing too little and too late in electromobility and, as a result, being left behind by the competition in the important sales market of China.