Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Stephan Winkelmann Named CEO Of Audi's Quattro GmbH


Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann has officially been named the new chief executive of Audi’s Quattro GmbH. Former Scuderia Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali will take his place as the new CEO of the Italian supercar brand.

While there is a bit of shock surrounding this news, rumors of this management shakeup have been floating around since December 2015. Winkelmann, who has been with Lamborghini since 2005 and is largely credited for the company’s massive growth over the past decade, will take the reigns from incumbent Quattro boss Heinz Hollerweger, who announced his retirement from his post after a stellar career with Audi spanning 40 years.

A big part of Winkelmann’s new responsibilities as Quattro GmbH CEO is to see to it that Audi’s performance division will become more competitive against its chief rivals, namely BMW’s M Division and Mercedes-Benz’s counterpart, AMG. Now that he’s at the helm of Quattro, he’ll be in charge of development of Audi’s R and RS production models, as well as the Audi Exclusive customization service, and the Audi Sport customer racing program.

As successful as he has been at Lamborghini, Winkelmann will still have enormous shoes to fill at Quattro, largely because of the work put in by his predecessor. Hollerweger only assumed the role of Quattro CEO in 2014, but in that short time, he is credited for the subsidiary’s sharp sales increase in 2015. Under his watch, Quattro’s sales figures in 2015 amounted to over 17,000 sold units, an increase of 13 percent compared to its total the year before. Hollerweger was also instrumental in the development of R8 e-tron to go with his contributions in the expansion and diversification of Audi Sport.

For his part, Winkelmann is expected to lead the division to new and more successful heights. It’s a role that he’s had experience with after spending the past 11 years doing the same thing for Lamborghini. As far as finding a suitable replacement for Hollerweger goes, nabbing Stephan Winkelmann from Lambo is a great hire for Quattro GmbH.

Continue after the jump to read the full story.





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