Dive Brief:
- Porsche Financial Services CFO Konrad Riedl is retiring from the company after a 36-year tenure, with the company tapping board spokesperson Volker Reichhardt to serve as finance chief, according to a Wednesday press release.
- As part of the management changes, PFS also appointed Michael Glinski to the role of chief commercial officer and to its board, according to the release. The business serves as Porsche AG’s financial arm, providing financial services to its namesake automotive brand as well as the Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti brands.
- The appointment comes as Porsche AG embarks on a new strategic initiative aimed at growing “sustainable profitability,” according to a Tuesday press release. The company’s “Strategy 2035” plan includes shifts in three key areas, including company and operations, where the business will be “structurally adapting our organization and streamlining it at all levels,” the German automaker said.
Dive Insight:
Riedl has made “a significant contribution to the development of the financial services business over the years,” Jochen Breckner, a member of the executive board for finance and IT at Porsche AG said in a statement included in the release.
The long-time Porsche alum has held the top finance seat at PFS since 2003, according to the company. Riedl first joined Porsche AG in 1990, serving in various roles including managing director positions in the U.S. and Japan, according to the release.
His successor Reichhardt, meanwhile, has served in his current position as spokesperson for the PFS board since 2022, the company said.
The new CFO will take the reins as Porsche AG remains in a “challenging situation,” CEO Michael Leiters said during the company’s general meeting. The top executive, who took the CEO reins in January, laid out the three key pillars for its Strategy 2035 plan during the meeting, which include brand and consumer and products and technology shifts as well as company and operations, according to the June 23 press release.
The German automaker has moved to realign its focus onto its core business, refining its product strategy by planning to reduce the number of its model variants — for example, the automaker discontinued two variants of its Taycan model in the U.S., the company said. Porsche also announced last month that it would close down three subsidiaries and cut about 500 jobs as it seeks to bolster profits, The Wall Street Journal reported on May 3.
Porsche’s product strategy is “the decisive lever to make Porsche stronger again,” Leiters said Tuesday, stressing that Strategy 2035 is not about sales volume, but about improving the strength of the brand.
Porsche and the wider global automotive industry have continued to weather ongoing challenges, including changing consumer sentiments, persistent inflation which has pushed up gas prices, and rising competition in the electric vehicle category.
The pressures have caused many automakers to take steps to streamline their operations and reduce costs through mass layoffs and constrictions of their product lineups. German automaker Volkswagen, for instance, plans to shrink its workforce by 19,000 by the end of this year, and is targeting over 28,000 job cuts by 2030 as it looks to execute on its own restructuring, according to a recent report by Reuters.
Japanese automaker Nissan, meanwhile, is scrapping plans for the release of a fully-electric version of its best-selling model in Europe as it moves to cut a fifth of its offered models in a bid to cut costs, The Guardian reported.
Despite ongoing economic headwinds, new car registrations within the European Union rose by 4% in May, with battery-electric vehicles encompassing 20% of the market year-to-date, according to a Tuesday press release by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
