VW CFO Hans Dieter Potsch nominated as new board chairman

The search for a successor to Ferdinand Piëch has come to an end as the Volkswagen Group has nominated a new chairman. The Executive and Nomination committees of VW's Supervisory Board have put their weight behind one Hans Dieter Pötsch, who currently serves on the company's management board as its chief financial officer. He's expected to continue in his current role until November when an extraordinary general meeting of the supervisory board can be called to confirm his nomination and a replacement CFO can be found to take his place.

As you may recall, the chairmanship of the Volkswagen board fell until recently to Ferdinand Piëch, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and one of the principals of the Porsche family that holds over 50 percent ownership in Volkswagen through Porsche Automobil Holding SE. Piëch went head to head with VW CEO Martin Winterkorn and ultimately lost. Piëch resigned and Winterkorn is about to have his term as chief executive extended through the end of 2018. In Piëch's place, former union head Berthold Huber was named as interim chairman, but is now referred to in the statement below once again as deputy chairman instead.

An Austrian native, Pötsch is an industrial engineer by training. He started his career at BMW where he ultimately served as group controller, and subsequently served as CFO and as chairman at a number of German corporations. Pötsch joined the VW management board in 2003, initially without portfolio, and soon assumed the financial portfolio – a role he has held until now.

In 2009 he took on the additional role of chief financial officer at the Porsche holding company, whose supervisory board representatives are the parties proposing Pötsch's nomination as the group's new chairman – even though he is not, strictly speaking, one of their own. In a related development, it appears that Julia Kuhn-Piëch will be leaving her board seat sooner than expected. The departing chairman Ferdinand Piëch opposed his niece's nomination to the board in his place, and now she'll apparently be stepping down to make way for the family's new choice of chairman.