Stephan Schaller

Mr. Stephan Schaller, Spokesman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge AG and Member of the Supervisory Board of MAN AGspoke about Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles AG's focus on profitable growth in the highly competitive commercial vehicle market in his presentationVolkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge - Sicher in die Zukunft durch qualitatives und quantitatives Wachstum.

Stephan Schaller (49) has been Spokesman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge AG, Hanover, since January 2007 and has also been a member of the Supervisory Board of MAN AG, Munich, since May 10, 2007.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles AG, as part of the group of companies around Europe's largest automobile manufacturer, is a global manufacturer of MPVs, leisure vehicles, light commercial vehicles, heavy trucks and buses. The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand set new half-year records for deliveries and sales in the first half of 2007. The volume of deliveries rose by 8.5 percent to 233,400 vehicles. At the same time, sales grew by 8.0 percent to 4.4 billion euros. The increase in operating profit was particularly pronounced, rising by 20.4 percent to 121 million euros, almost three times as fast as turnover. This was achieved in particular by reducing unit costs per vehicle, by cutting internal costs and through profit-oriented sales structures.

Following the good results in the individual sales markets, progress can now also be seen in the key financial figures. The operating result in particular clearly shows that the measures introduced to improve the quality of earnings are taking effect. In recent years, the VW subsidiary has invested a total of over three billion euros in the complete renewal of its model range - consisting of the Caddy city delivery van, the T5 van and the Crafter small truck.

Stephan Schaller has been Spokesman of the Brand Board of Management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles AG since January 1, 2007. Prior to this, he had been Board Member for Product Manufacturing since February 2004. In this function, he was responsible in particular for the production of the T5 and the launch of the Microbus.

Schaller studied mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University, specializing in automotive engineering. He completed his studies in 1981 with a degree in engineering and began a two-year trainee program in the technology department of the BMW Group. From 1983 to 1999, he held various management positions within the BMW Group, including overall production management at BMW Group South Africa (Pty) Ltd. and head of the Research and Development Center at BMW headquarters in Munich. In 1999, Schaller became Head of Technology at Linde AG in Wiesbaden. From 2000 to December 2003, he was a member of the Executive Board of Linde AG in the Refrigeration Technology division. In this function, he was responsible for ten plants with 6,500 employees worldwide.

In his contribution to the 15th Munich Management Colloquium, Stephan Schaller will examine the question of how the value creation of an internationally active commercial vehicle manufacturer should be structured in order to ensure qualitative and quantitative growth in the long term.

Status: Beginning of 2008