Volkswagen is pulling five senior executives out of their chairs and dropping them into new ones, all effective October 1, 2026. The centerpiece of this elaborate game of musical chairs is Marco Schubert, who moves from his current post running sales at Audi to take charge of the entire North American region as a member of the Extended Executive Committee.
That title matters less than the mandate behind it. Volkswagen is finally admitting what anyone watching its U.S. sales charts already knew: the brand needs a dedicated North America strategy, not warmed-over European product plans shipped across the Atlantic.
Thomas Schäfer, who runs Brand Group Core and the VW passenger car brand, framed it as moving “closer to our customers and dealers” and developing “the right vehicles for the market, from within the market.” Translation: Wolfsburg has been getting North America wrong, and the fix requires someone on the ground with real authority.
The most telling detail buried in the press release isn’t the personnel moves. It’s the product signal. Volkswagen will “explore opportunities in the highly popular body-on-frame B-segment, including robust SUVs and pick-up trucks.”
VW is publicly flirting with a pickup truck for the American market. Again. The Tanoak concept floated that idea back in 2018 and went nowhere. Whether this time is different depends entirely on whether Schubert’s mandate comes with actual capital allocation or just a corner office.
The company also wants to accelerate its presence in hybrid electric vehicles, a tacit acknowledgment that the all-electric push hasn’t delivered the volume VW needs in North America. The ID.4 hasn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire stateside. Pivoting toward HEVs is the pragmatic move every legacy automaker is making right now.
Behind Schubert’s departure from Audi, the dominoes fall in rapid succession. Martin Sander leaves VW’s sales board to replace Schubert at Audi. Martin Jahn slides from Škoda into Sander’s seat at VW.
Martina Biene moves from running VW Group Africa to take Jahn’s sales role at Škoda. And Christiane Zorn, freshly arrived at Porsche from Audi, jumps to lead VW Group Africa.
Five moves. Five brands and regions touched. Every single person in this chain is a Volkswagen Group lifer or near-lifer, with resumes that read like internal transfer logs. Schubert has 25 years inside the group. Sander has 25 years in the industry, split between Audi and a stint at Ford.
Jahn has been bouncing between VW Group entities since 2006. Biene joined in 2001. This is not an injection of outside thinking.
This is the Volkswagen Group reshuffling its own deck, betting that the right combination of familiar faces in unfamiliar seats will produce different results.
Schäfer called it “a seamless handover of the baton.” That’s one way to describe it. Another is that Volkswagen remains deeply committed to promoting from within, even when the challenges, particularly in North America, arguably demand fresh perspective.
The North America piece is the one to watch. VW sold roughly 400,000 vehicles in the U.S. last year, a solid number but a fraction of what Toyota or Hyundai move. The Tiguan and Jetta carry the load.
The electric lineup struggles for attention. And the suggestion of body-on-frame trucks and SUVs would require platform investments that dwarf anything VW currently has in the pipeline for the region.
Schubert has 16 months before he officially takes the wheel. Somewhere in Wolfsburg, the PowerPoint decks on “In North America, for North America” are already being drafted. Whether they survive contact with the budget committee is another question entirely.
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