At least professionally, Mary Barra and Herbert Diess have a lot in common, even if they are probably worlds apart in their private lives.
She is the boss of the largest American car company General Motors, once the world market leader in the automotive industry.
He heads the European Primus, the Volkswagen Group, which was the world market leader until 2019 and fell just behind Toyota to second place last year.
What both top managers have in common is their mission: Barra and Diess want to drive their corporations into the electric age, and as quickly as possible. With this ambition, the American, who has been with GM since 1981, has now overtaken the Austrian at the top of the VW group. Barra has set General Motors an exit date for internal combustion engine production, one that is significantly more ambitious than that of many other manufacturers.