The new boss of the world’s largest volume automobile manufacturer, Volkswagen AG, which includes Ducati among its several high-profile brands, is a passionate motorcyclist who played a key role in transforming the fortunes of BMW Motorrad.
The man who turned BMW Motorrad into the highly profitable entity it is today during his four-year stint in charge of the company is taking hold of the reins at Volkswagen. And that company owns Ducati.
We’re talking about Dr Herbert Diess, 59, who on April 12 was officially announced as being the new chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen AG, with immediate effect. As such, he will have overall responsibility for the future direction of Ducati, VAG’s motorcycle brand which it currently holds since buying it in 2012 while Diess was still at BMW. And for Ducati fans, this is a good bit of news because Diess is a lifelong bike rider, and a native of BMW’s home city of Munich.
After a brief stint in academic research, he joined Stuttgart-based industry supplier Robert Bosch AG in 1989. From there, he was recruited by BMW in 1996 to head up their structural planning division, and was then dispatched to the UK in 1999 to join the turnaround team charged with transforming the company’s ailing Rover subsidiary. There, while continuing to clock up the miles exploring Britain at weekends and holidays on his personal R1100RT boxer motorcycle, Diess was put in charge of putting the new Mini into production at Rover’s Oxford plant. As a reward for his contribution to the huge commercial success of the Mini, he was promoted in February 2003 to become president of BMW’s motorcycle division, whose elderly customer base for its then-lacklustre range of models was literally dying away.
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