Dr. Herbert Diess, picture courtesy Volkswagen AG
Unless you make your home under a rock, you are well aware by now that Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess has been dismissed. To the avid Volkswagen watcher, it didn’t come as a surprise. He never was a favorite of the powerful unions, and intentions of getting rid of 35,000 workers made the dislike worse. Volkswagen Group global sales were down 22% in the first half of the year, while peer Toyota was down only 2% January-May. That is liable to get a CEO on the bad side of both the unions, and the shareholders. Diess earned a lot of praise for his big bet on EVs, but customers didn’t buy. So, Diess diessmissed. His place is taken by Porsche CEO and Volkswagen Group lifer Oliver Blume. He presided over a drop of only 5% in sales at Porsche, and compared to the rest of Volkswagen, that’s excellent.
As if the above wasn’t enough reason, the media has been full of speculations as to why Diess was let go. If you want the real dope, ask the insiders. Over the weekend, I talked to my trusted sources, commonly known as the #hallwayradio, all executives at Volkswagen. They have been reliable in the past. Without further comments, let’s switch over to the #hallwayradio.
“The termination of the cooperation with Dr. Diess has been long overdue. At no point in time has he ever completely embraced Wolfsburg, or Volkswagen. Diess never really “arrived” at Volkswagen.”
“Diess is notorious for his solo flights. He utterly failed with important topics like our software-shop Cariad. Gigantic announcements of projects like Artemis, or Trinity fell flat. With Diess gone, Thomas Ulbrich will have to right the listing ship again. We are lucky to still have people like him.”
“Half a year ago, Diess told the Supervisory Board that 35,000 people in German Volkswagen factories would have to go. It’s a known fact in Wolfsburg that such intentions will land you on top of the kill lists kept at the Union and the Works Council. Dr. Diess ignored that completely.”
“Notwithstanding his undeniable successes, he’s neither integrable, nor is he able to work in a team. For Diess, “transformation” doesn’t mean to inspire people. It means to exchange people for new ones, preferably for outsiders.”
“The Porsche and Piech families who hold the controlling shares at Volkswagen have pushed for Diess’s firing. Supervisory Board meetings were ripe with comments like “massively weak leadership”, “egotist”, and “announcement champion.”
“Whole Volkswagen, except for a few outside hires perhaps, is looking forward to Blume.”
