Automotive News Europe

2010 EUROSTAR – CFO

Hans Dieter Poetsch, VW Group CFO

Poetsch’s attention to detail has VW reaching new heights
As Volkswagen AG moves closer to its goal of ousting Toyota Motor Corp. as the world’s biggest carmaker, Hans Dieter Poetsch is making sure the German carmaking giant’s lofty ambitions don’t drain its financial resources. A merger with Porsche, a 20 percent stake in Suzuki and new factories in the United States, China and India are all big projects that would test the financial strength of any large international company. Volkswagen is doing all those things while promising investors significantly higher profits in 2010 than 2009. The 59-year-old VW Group chief financial officer has brought financial rigor, capital discipline and a detailed planning process to Volkswagen. 2010 EUROSTAR – SALES & MARKETING EXECUTIVE He was heavily involved in structuring a complex deal to bail out Porsche in the summer of 2009. He also managed to raise 4 billion euros (about $5 billion) from the financial markets during the industry’s worst crisis in decades to help fund VW’s merger with Porsche. Thanks to Poetsch’s diligence, the Porsche deal contains checks and balances to protect VW’s balance sheet, said Sanford Bernstein analyst Max Warburton. Since joining VW in 2003, Poetsch has driven a significant cultural change at Europe’s biggest automaker that has brought financial rigor, capital discipline and a detailed planning process, according to Warburton. Allan Rushforth, Hyundai Europe Vice President

Rushforth helped Hyundai gain the most from scrappage schemes
Last year may have been a crisis year for most mass-market brands in Europe, but not for Hyundai, which boosted its new-car sales and increased its market share by a large margin. Hyundai Europe Vice President Allan Rushforth can look back on a job well done. Most volume automakers in Europe benefited from government incentives that encouraged car owners to swap old cars for new ones, but the Korean brand’s success was spectacular – with a nearly 30 percent rise in European volume to a little more than 341,000 units, capturing 2.4 percent of the market, up from 1.9 percent in 2008. Hyundai was able to benefit from scrappage 2010 EUROSTARS – SUPPLIER DIVISION CEO schemes in markets such as Germany, France and Italy because in the two years since he joined Hyundai as vice president Rushforth had laid solid foundations to increase the professionalism of the brand’s sales, marketing and distribution activities. The energetic 50-year-old Englishman, who once represented Britain at the world triathlon championship, has 25 years experience in the auto business including spells with Rover, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen. He was also responsible for the launch and operation of Land Rover in Korea. Rushforth has used his wide experience to optimize relations between Hyundai’s headquarters in Korea and Europe. Alex Ismail, Honeywell Transportation Systems CEO

Ismail’s cool kept Honeywell unit profitable during crisis
Honeywell Transportation Systems CEO Alex Ismail didn’t panic when unit sales of his division’s top product – turbochargers – took a hard hit in 2009. He also didn’t fret when the global economic crisis caused some of the company’s turbo customers to cancel or delay contracts at the start of 2009. The 45-year-old executive knew that the business’s position as the world’s dominant No. 1 maker of turbochargers would be safe because of the technology it was developing, the improvements it had made to its production processes and its global reach. Ismail said that by late 2009 to early 2010 many of the customers that had gone away came back looking for a turbocharger for a different engine project. “In the next five years we will be working on 400 new engines, 100 of those projects will happen in 2010,” Ismail said. The unit’s revenues declined more than a quarter to $3.4 billion in 2009 while operating profit was more than halved to $156 million last year. Despite the ongoing challenges, Honeywell Transportation Systems expects sales growth of 6 percent to 12 percent this year. Ismail joined Honeywell’s turbocharging business in 1999 and led that division until taking his current job in April 2009.

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