Munich Re Chairman and former BMW and Volkswagen Group CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, has been proposed … [+]
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Former BMW and Volkswagen Group boss Bernd Pischetsrieder is likely to become the next Chairman of Daimler after the German car and truck maker’s Supervisory Board proposed him today.
He is likely to be elected to replace long-serving Supervisory Board Chairman Manfred Bischoff, who is stepping down on March 31, 2021.
Following the unsurprising withdrawal of former Daimler CEO Dr Dieter Zetsche, Pischetsrieder’s confirmation would mean the manager would collect the whole set of German car makers.
He served as Volkswagen Group CEO, overseeing Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen among others, from 2002 to late 2006, and was the CEO of Daimler’s long-term rival, BMW, from 1993 to 1999.
With Daimler controlling the Mercedes-Benz and smart brands, it would mean the only other German automaker he hasn’t lead is former GM offshoot Opel (though that’s now owned by France’s Groupe PSA so probably no longer counts as German).
Pischetsrieder is also the Chairman of the Munich Re insurance company and has served on the Daimler Supervisory Board since 2013.
In a statement released today, Daimler will also put forward Cisco Senior Vice-President Elizabeth Centoni, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Bürden and BASF CEO Martin Brudermüller for election to the Supervisory Board when the vote is taken at the 2021 annual general meeting.
Pischetsrieder, a cousin of Sir Alec Issigonis, the engineer of the first Mini, was responsible for BMW’s purchase of the Rover Group from British Aerospace in 1994.
While it delivered the Mini brand to BMW and the all-wheel drive expertise it needed for its X5 SUV, the working relationship soured and Land Rover and Range Rover were sold to Ford just six years later.
He is more widely known for deftly cutting the Volkswagen Group out of the rights to use the Rolls-Royce name and logo, even though it outbid BMW to pay £430 million pounds for it.
Via their work together on aero engines, BMW knew that it was Rolls-Royce’s aero division, rather than Vickers, that controlled the Rolls-Royce name and bonnet badge trademarks. Pischetsrieder paid them £40 million for the all-important rights to brand name and logo, leaving the Volkswagen Group with the consolation prize of Bentley.
A keen driver, he once destroyed a million-dollar McLaren F1 sportscar prototype (BMW supplied the V12 engine) during pre-launch testing.
Pischetsrieder was moved on from the Volkswagen Group by the late Ferdinand Piech for the crime of insisting that the flagship Bugatti Veyron be reengineered, paving the way for the arrival of Dr Martin Winterkorn.
Dr Winterkorn has been charged over his role in the 2015 Dieselgate scandal that cost Volkswagen more than €30 billion, so the German industry probably remembers him more kindly than his successor.
