Winfried Vahland

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Winfried Vahland, born April 1, 1957, in Beckum, Germany, is a German business executive. He studied mechanical engineering and business administration at Darmstadt Technical University and earned an MBA at the General Motors Institute in Michigan. He began his career in 1984 at Opel, then held roles at General Motors Europe and Audi. In 1993 he joined Volkswagen Group, working in controlling and later in sales coordination for VW and the Group, including the Asia-Pacific region. He led Volkswagen Brazil’s finance operations and also oversaw the Argentine market.

In 2002 he joined Škoda’s board and became vice chairman in 2003; in 2010 he became Škoda’s board chairman. He held senior VW positions, including president and CEO of Volkswagen China Investment Company (2005) and executive vice president of VW AG (2006). He received honorary doctorates from the University of Economics in Prague (2006) and Dalian University of Technology (2012), and was named honorary citizen of Changchun (2006) and Chengdu (2012). He briefly headed Volkswagen’s North American division in 2015, resigning after two weeks. In 2024, Vahland became chairman of the board at Polestar.