The Volkswagen Group is officially entering its “minimalist” era, though not exactly by choice. The German giant has unveiled a massive industrial reorganization aimed at hacking away €1 billion in costs by 2030. The Brand Group Core, which includes volume heavyweights like Volkswagen, Skoda, and SEAT/Cupra. Apparently, having too many cooks in the kitchen is getting expensive, so the company is clearing out the boardroom before the summer of 2026.
The number of board members across these brands will be slashed by a third. We are talking about a drop from 29 to just 19 apical figures. In the future, each brand will be stripped down to a “fantastic four”: a CEO, a CFO, and heads of Sales and HR. If you were the head of Development, Production, or Procurement at a specific brand, hope you like commuting to Wolfsburg. Those functions are being centralized at headquarters to stop everyone from reinventing the wheel—literally.
But the pruning doesn’t stop at the office. Thomas Schäfer, the man leading this austerity charge, is also carving up the globe. Volkswagen’s 20+ factories will be consolidated into five production regions. Each region will be overseen by cross-brand managers tasked with making sure Skoda and VW play nice on the same assembly lines.
This industrial facelift is expected to save €400 million through efficiency alone, while another €600 million will be squeezed out of personnel costs.
This “leaner” vision comes at a heavy price. This restructuring is the backdrop for a much grimmer reality. The planned elimination of 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030. As Volkswagen battles a perfect storm of slowing demand, aggressive Chinese rivals, and the bruising costs of the industrial transition, the message is clear. The days of bloated corporate structures are over. Whether a smaller boardroom can solve the problems of a global titan remains to be seen.
