⁍ Zetsche, 67, a former head of the Mercedes-Benz brand, was due to take a seat as chairman of the board of directors at the Stuttgart-based company after a two-year cooling off period.
⁍ Now Manfred Bischoff, Daimler’s current chairman needs to find a new successor candidate before he retires on March 31, 2021.
– Dieter Zetsche won’t be Daimler AG’s next chairman after all. The 67-year-old auto industry veteran announced in an interview with a German newspaper that he is giving up his role as chairman of the company’s supervisory board, a position he had been due to take after a two-year “cooling off period,” the BBC reports. Zetsche, who served as chief executive of Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz brand from 2009 to 2016, had faced criticism from investors who said he should step down over the company’s role in the diesel-emissions scandal. “The fact that after 40 years of work, I am not regarded by some as an asset, but as a burden, I do not need that,” Zetsche said, per Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reports that Zetsche’s recusal could open the way for Joe Kaeser, currently chief executive of German engineering giant Siemens, to replace him. Zetsche’s move “enables Daimler to reorient itself under new management, a step which from our point of view is necessary,” a fund manager at Germany’s Union Investment tells Reuters.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-chairman/daimler-investors-push-for-independent-chairman-as-zetsche-bows-out-idUSKBN26I0NJ