Earthquake in the dome of the Volkswagen Group.

The Supervisory Board of the German consortium has decided that Herbert Diess, its employer since 2018, will step

down as of September 1 and be replaced by Oliver Blume.

This will also maintain his position as president of Porsche AG,

pending his IPO, an operation that was initially scheduled for the last quarter of this year.

The departure would have been agreed and represents a generational change at the head of the company, since Diess is 62 years old and Blume 54, at a key moment given the transformation that the automotive world is experiencing.

A revolution where the figurehead is electrification, accelerated by the hand of Diess

also to erase any trace of the dieselgate scandal;

but that it has two other great focuses on digitization (with the development of its own software as one of VW's great objectives) and connectivity.

The departure of Diess would have been agreed by mutual agreement and in an official statement, the company wanted to

thank him "for his great contribution to the transformation of the consortium"

Diess was at the head of the VW Group since April 2018

"I am very excited to lead both Porsche AG and the Volkswagen Group. My focus will be on customers, brands and products. The human component is always at the forefront for me," said

Blume, who was at the helm of Porsche. since 2015.

Before that, he was a member of the Board of Management responsible for Production and Logistics at Porsche.

He has also been a member of the consortium's Board of Directors since 2018. Born in Braunschweig,

he joined the Volkswagen Group in 1994 and, since then, has held management positions for the AUDI, SEAT, Volkswagen and Porsche brands.

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