On Tuesday, November 8 at noon, the CEO of Seat y Cupra, Wayne Griffithscalled the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez. He wanted to ensure, without ambiguity, the guarantee and long-term commitment of the Spanish Government to continue financially supporting the consortium (Perte) destined to manufacture electric cars on a large scale in Spain, within the framework of the strategy of the European Union and the money NextGen.
Three weeks had already passed since the dissatisfaction of the Volkswagen group, owner of Seat, was uncovered about how the Spanish administration was managing the aid, via subsidies and loans, of the PERTE created on May 4, 2022 by 62 companies from 11 autonomous communities . Led by VW/Seat, this PERTE included the extraction, development and manufacture -in Sagunto, Valencia- of lithium batteries and the production of electric cars at the plants in Martorell, Barcelona, and Landaben, Navarra. At stake: 10,000 million and the long-term creation of 140,000 jobs. Goal: manufacture 250,000 electric vehicles annually, starting in 2025.
«It was a very personal bet by Griffiths. He was gambling everything. He showed his face at the highest level. With all the authorities, at the state and regional level. He could have gone wrong », Seat sources say about the storm of expectations created those days. The least important thing was the 397 million, divided into grants and loans, which the Government will immediately award, less than initially expected.
The keys to the political commitments are: facilitating the development of new factories to electrify cars -they will mean, through layoffs, the progressive dismantling of some of the current car production lines- and tax advantages that facilitate the purchase of electric vehicles. These only account for 3% of the sector’s sales in Spain today. In short: facilitate and speed up.
Few at Seat thought that Wayne Griffiths, appointed CEO of Seat in September 2020, could be capable of generating a greater public profile than his predecessor in the position, the Italian luca de meo. Since December 1996, the date on which John Lawrence abandoned the presidency of Seat, there has never been a Spanish chief executive at Seat again. The CEO’s were primarily engineers and were not there for more than three years. With a very low profile, they left highly selected Spanish executives with a public presence. In May 2013, the appointment of Jurgen Stackman as CEO, it means a change of course. Brand pride begins to reappear and the commercial strategy turns, which Meo will end up promoting since 2015. Among the established challenges: re-associating Seat with Barcelona and creating a new brand: Cupra.
From the company, they officially award the birth of Cupra to both De Meo and Griffiths, Seat’s sales and marketing manager since 2016. But it will be this Englishman (Dukinfield, 1966) who decided to become a German national in protest against Brexit, who has the ambition and responsibility to make it a global brand. Griffiths’ institutional presence took another leap in January when he assumed the presidency of the sector’s employers’ association (Handy), the first time that a non-Spanish leader has achieved it. designer clothes lover Thom Browneconfesses as a “rebel with a cause” in his profile LinkedIn and breaks the stereotypes of the top manager. Youtube It is another of his favorite channels of communication.
To carry out its objectives in Spain, Griffiths has great support at the group’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. The new president of VW since September 1, Oliver Blume (Brunswick 1968), worked for five years in the Seat production unit at the turn of the century and maintains a home on the Barcelona coast. The first council of the VW group as president was held at the Seat house in Barcelona. As chief executive of Porsche He has led the IPO of this brand, a subsidiary of VW; valued at 78,000 million euros. Apart from the Porsche families and footwhich controls the group, the sovereign wealth fund Qatar has 10.5% of the German manufacturer and the state of Lower Saxony 11.8%. Another detail: he has been sitting on the VW supervisory board since April 2021 Matias Carnero, UGT trade unionist, representative of the Seat workers’ committee. The interlocutor role of him at all levels must always be taken into account.
And the Seat figures? According to the group’s memory, in the first nine months it has lost ten million euros affected by the charge of a provision for restructuring of 244 million. In the same period last year it had already lost 159 million. Sales rose 7.7% to $7.82 billion (VW revenues totaled $202 billion). Seat sold 333,000 vehicles compared to 384,000. The success of Griffiths and his two bets will depend on what happens with these figures: Cupra and electrification.
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Meo’s heritage in Seat
Luca de Meo (Milan, 1967) became one of the main defenders and sellers of Barcelona in the period of the process y postprocess. He was the head of Seat from November 2015 to January 2020. He multiplied his presence in forums and events. He turned the company’s numbers around and managed, in the midst of the political storm, to keep Seat out of the debate. His commitment to investments in Catalonia remained firm and his arguments convinced the few skeptics of the VW committee. His work at Seat prompted him to compete. Renault He offered him to be its CEO, a position he has held since July 2020. His plans are not only for the electric car formula. They still stand to maintain the commitment to combustion and hybrids.