Audi announces new board of management for its new Chinese venture

Audi and FAW have announced the management team for its new cooperative enterprise with FAW, which will produce electric vehicles on the PPE - short for Premium Platform Electric - in Changchun from 2024 onwards.

The team will be headed with Helmut Stettner, current Plant Manager at the Audi site in Neckarsulm, taking on the role of CEO from 1 May 2021.

Stettner had already taken on responsibility for establishing the new company in China on an acting basis in August 2020 and has managed the project with Audi's Chinese partner FAW in addition to his duties in Neckarsulm. Stettner has extensive experience in China and is returning to a place of work that is already familiar to him, as he was Site and Production Manager at FAW-Volkswagen in Changchun from 2011 to 2015.

Further positions on the Board of Management are taken by two Audi and two FAW managers. Hendrik Adrian Wanger, currently Vice President for Finance and IT at Audi Mexico, will move from Central America to China to become Vice President for Finance and Commercials. Vice President for Procurement and IT will be Thomas Niewelt, currently Head of Procurement for Raw Materials/Exhaust Systems at Audi in Ingolstadt.

Yu Qiutao will be responsible as Vice President for Production at the new site, having spent his entire professional career at FAW-Volkswagen. Gao Kun, who has worked in a number of leading roles in the field of human resources at FAW, will take the position of Vice President for Human Resources and Organization.

The new cooperative enterprise, in which Audi has a majority holding, is currently being established. From 2024 onwards, several fully electric Audi models will be manufactured for the Chinese market based on the PPE platform.