Bernhard Maier is Skoda’s new CEO

After the resignation of Prof. Dr. Winfried Vahland, the VW group has appointed Porsche AG’s former sales and marketing director as Skoda’s new CEO, effective Nov 1, 2015. The move comes in around two weeks after Dr. Vahland, who was to head Volkswagen North America, resigned due to differences over the group’s restructuring.

Maier has an extensive amount of experience in the automotive industry. Apart from being well versed with the mechanical end of automobiles, he held several managerial positions at BMW in Germany, before joining Porsche AG and becoming the German performance car brand’s sales and marketing chief and contributing to the brand’s model range expansion as well.

The VW group is still in damage control mode and will rely on the market acumen of executives like Bernhard Maier, to bolster the growth of mass market brands like Skoda, which recently launched the highly anticipated 3rd generation Superb.