This brand can be brought to shine again very quickly

CEO Thomas Schäfer wants VW to move on from its high-profile own goals and be loved by the public once again. He tells Felix Page how he plans to make that happen

- Felix Page

A German walks into a bar in County Wicklow. Barman says: "You new in town?" The German says: "Yes, I'm Thomas, and this is my wife, Wendy, and we just moved to the stables down the road."

The bar goes quiet. The barman rings a bell and shouts over the music: "Everyone, this is Thomas and Wendy and they've just moved into the stables down the road. Say hello!"

The CEO of Europe's biggest car brand has just met his new neighbours.

WHO IS THOMAS SCHAFER?

Although he has been the boss at Volkswagen for just a year, Marburg-born Thomas Schäfer was already well known as the charismatic and personable ex-CEO of sibling brand Skoda, where for two years he played a core role in cementing a wide-reaching reform of the Czech brand's line-up and positioning, centred on the people-pleasing attributes of utility, charm and affordability.

He took the VW brand top job as part of a corporate shuffle caused by the departure of the rather more enigmatic ex-VW Group CEO Herbert Diess - whose forced exit from the Wolfsburg company last year is widely attributed to spiralling delays and shortcomings at the Cariad software division he founded, and whose legacy will never quite be detached from the criticisms of inutility and charisma deficiency directed at cars launched under his supervision.

Incongruous though it may seem that the CEO of a global automotive powerhouse based in Lower Saxony should have settled in the wilds of eastern Ireland, Schäfer explains that he's well used to the commute and has achieved an idealistic work-life balance that ensures he's able to enjoy every moment he's not cooped up in a boardroom, poring over sales figures and product cycle plans.