Porsche, the luxury sports car division of German auto giant Volkswagen, on Wednesday named Oliver Blume as its new chief executive replacing Matthias Mueller, who has been made head of the entire VW group. Porsche said in a statement that its supervisory board appointed 47-year-old Blume, previously the board member in charge of production and logistics, at a meeting on Wednesday. Supervisory board chief Wolfgang Porsche said he was "particularly pleased" that Blume and Detlev von Platen, who was also appointed Wednesday to take charge of sales and marketing, were both company insiders.
"Porsche doesn't only have a highly motivated workforce, but also a very large number of qualified top managers," Porsche said. Blume, born in Brunswick in northern Germany, in 1968, studied mechanical engineering and joined VW's upmarket Audi brand in 1994 as a trainee.