Volkswagen To Pick Porsche CEO Matthias Mueller As New CEO

Volkswagen has found their new CEO, Matthias Mueller, the current Porsche Chief executive. Tomorrow, the Volkswagen AG board will meet to decide who will succeed Dr. Martin Winterkorn and Mueller is the expected replacement. VW is handing the reins of the automaker over to Mueller during the fieriest scandal in the history of the company.

Volkswagen is being investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the clean air act in at least a 482,000 vehicles in the U.S. and as many as 11 million across the world. Amidst the backlash, VW AG CEO Dr. Martin Winterkorn formally resigned leaving the top spot open for Mueller, who has a long history with Volkswagen.

Mueller was once the head product strategist at VW and has worked for different auto businesses owned by Volkswagen for more than 30 years. Mueller is believed to have the majority support of the Porsche and Piech families on the board. Mueller has a reputation for speaking his mind and being more “laid-back” than a typical automaker CEO. However, VW is putting him at the helm not because he’s cooler than other well groomed executive candidates, but because he gets results.

Porsche has seen a surge under Mueller’s leadership. Bloomberg reports that under Mueller’s leadership of the Porsche 911 brand, the unit has grown by two-thirds in four years. The Porsche brand is also expected to hit a 200,000 unit sales goal for 2015, which a milestone that Reuters reports is three years early. Mueller will need to use what he learned at Porsche to help Volkswagen recover from the ever-expanding emissions testing scandal.

Mueller’s leadership will be critical as VW needs to decide how to navigate U.S. fines from the EPA of $18 billion, how to help U.S dealers who now find themselves without key vehicles for sale and what it will take for the VW brand to recover consumer trust. We will keep you updated on developing stories that are part of the VW scandal as new details are emerging daily.