Daimler AG plans to add Wolfgang Bernhard, head of its Mercedes-Benz Vans unit, to its management board and give him responsibility for production and purchasing at its flagship Mercedes-Benz Cars unit. He will continue to oversee the van unit.
Rainer Schmueckle, COO of the car unit, has previously handled production and purchasing duties. The company says it is holding unspecified discussions with Schmueckle. Daimler’s supervisory board will vote on whether to expand the management board to add Bernhard.
News reports that cite anonymous sources say Schmueckle will leave Daimler. He is credited with restructuring the company’s car and truck units. But his decision to shift production of the C-Class midsize sedan from a plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, to a factory near Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2014 provoked angry protests by German workers in December.
Analysts suggest Bernhard, 49, is being positioned to assume the post of Mercedes-Benz Cars CEO now held by Dieter Zetsche—and perhaps to eventually succeed the 56-year-old Zetsche at Daimler’s helm. Bernhard was COO of Chrysler, then a Daimler unit, when Zetsche was CEO there. Bernhard was slated to take charge of Mercedes-Benz Cars in 2004 before a dispute with then-CEO Juergen Schrempp and opposition from the company’s unions led to his ouster.
Bernhard was CEO of Volkswagen AG’s namesake unit from 2005-2007, where he was known as a hard-nosed cost-cutter who sometimes clashed with German labor unions. He left VW shortly after his ally, CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, was removed in a boardroom coup. When Bernhard returned to Daimler last April as head of the van business, it was widely viewed as a stepping stone to a bigger job.