After Porsche’s chief financial officer Lutz Meschke and chief sales officer Detlev von Platen unexpectedly announced their resignation, the board of supervisors acted quickly to reach an agreement on the two successors. From now on, Porsche welcomes two new executives: Jochen Breckner, 47, will take over the finance department, while Matthias Becker, 54, will take over the sales field. The change marks the return of the Porsche board to its full lineup again.
Wolfgang Porsche, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, commented: “We are deeply pleased to discover two outstanding successors, Jochen Breckner and Matthias Becker, within Porsche. We will work with them to continue writing the brilliant chapter of Porsche’s success.”
Speaking of Breckner, his career is closely linked to Porsche. Starting as an intern and graduate student, he spent more than 25 years at Porsche until he became a PhD in business administration. In 2008, he was honored to be the right-hand assistant to the Executive Board Chairman (then Wendelin Wiedeking). Subsequently, he accumulated rich experience through his multi-position experience in the control department. In 2018, he was entrusted with an important task to take charge of the Porsche General Secretariat and the Corporate Development Department. In this role, he demonstrated outstanding leadership, successfully promoting the company’s initial public offering (IPO) and implementing efficiency improvement programs. Breckner’s successor will be the Christian Pantel, currently responsible for a certain Porsche series.
As for Becker, his journey with Porsche began in 2015. According to the announcement, as the leader in overseas and growth market areas, he has successfully covered more than 70 markets including Southeast Asia, Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, etc., and became the mainstay of the Porsche sales network. Prior to this, he also had extensive management experience in the Volkswagen Group, including holding sales leadership positions in the European and Chinese markets at Audi, as well as his experience in the group’s subsidiary Skoda and Germany’s mass marketing department.
Faced with the resignation storm between Meschke and von Platen, Chairman of the Supervisory Board Wolfgang Porsche highly praised the contributions of the two. Although this change surprised the outside world, Porsche is trying hard to interpret this change as a strategic layout that has been prepared. “Both colleagues have shown the qualities of driving the company’s development from day one, and we will benefit a lot from it thanks to structured succession planning and long-term talent development,” said Oliver Blume, CEO of Porsche.
However, Obomu did not comment too much on his outgoing colleagues, and by contrast, Wolfgang Porsche praised Meschke and von Platen’s achievements. Meschke “with firm determination and strategic vision, he boldly led the company’s active development and unswervingly promoted the smooth progress of the IPO.” von Platen’s “excellent contribution to global market development” is also worth remembering.
It is worth noting that although Meschke will resign from the board of directors of Porsche AG, he will continue to hold key positions in Porsche SE, the parent company of the Porsche and Piech family and the major shareholder of the Volkswagen Group. The press release revealed that Porsche SE hopes to use Meschke’s professional capabilities to accurately grasp investment opportunities and expand the scope of investment management.
“As a member of the Executive Board of Porsche SE’s investment management, Lutz Meschke will do his best to promote various activities in the portfolio field and further deepen the formulation of investment strategies.” His contract expired until June 30, 2030 and was successfully renewed last year.
A few weeks ago, Porsche AG revealed in an interim announcement that two members of the executive board will soon leave “after friendly negotiations between the two parties”, but no successor was specified at the time. Since then, the media has speculated who will be the successor. However, it is surprising that those eventually appointed executive board members have not attracted widespread attention from journalists.
There are still many different opinions about the exact reason for the sudden resignation this time, shrouded in a mysterious veil. In von Platen’s case, weak Chinese business and inappropriate remarks made by his wife on the podcast were seen as possible triggers. For Meschke, the stock price performance failed to meet expectations, which may become a catalyst for his resignation. There are also rumors that if Obomu gives up his dual identities as CEOs of Volkswagen and Porsche, Meschke may have the ambition to become CEO.
This high-level change undoubtedly brings new challenges and opportunities to Porsche. However, with the new executives in place, Porsche seems ready to meet the challenges ahead and continue to write its immortal legendary chapter.