After Matthias Muller left Porsche to lead Volkswagen Group out if Dieselgate scandal, its place remained empty. Now, the Porsche board decided to name Oliver Blume in the position of Chairman, starting October 1st. It has been exactly five years since Müller left Volkswagen to become the CEO of Porsche AG.
Since the beginning of 2013, Blume has been a member of the Porsche Executive Board responsible for Production and Logistics.
Uwe Hück, Chairman of the Group Works Council of Porsche, said: “Ever since 2010, Matthias Müller has been the ‘turbocharger’, the driving force for great advances at Porsche. He embodies our Porsche DNA. We are not happy to see him go. But his successor, Oliver Blume, is no budding manager; rather he is in full bloom. He has the right drive technology in him, and he is a Porsche person through and through. He has a big heart and he is one of us. And I think that appointing a Production person to the top position is a strong statement. I am certain that Oliver Blume is the right choice for successfully continuing and further developing what we have built up together with Matthias Müller. If we want to follow through on our planned projects and assure our future, we need continuity.”
Oliver Blume will take the helm in Zuffenhausen in an exciting time. Porsche is investing over 1.1 billion euros in its current production sites over the next five years. For instance, a new engine plant and a new body manufacturing plant will be built at the company’s main business site. The assembly line in Zuffenhausen will also be extended. In the future, not only will all 911 and Boxster cars come off the assembly line here, but also Cayman models starting in summer 2016.
As the board member for Production and Logistics, Blume himself oversaw the extensive preliminary groundwork for this and also the setup of the shop for handcrafting the 918 Spyder and further expansion of the Leipzig plant for the Macan and full production of the Panamera.
