CEO-Impact-Ranking: Oliver Blume (Volkswagen / Porsche) defends top position

As CEO of no less than two DAX-listed companies - Volkswagen and Porsche - Oliver Blume enjoys a very high level of media attention. He has been at the top of the UNICEPTA CEO Impact Ranking for a year now. To determine the media impact of the DAX 40 CEOs, media intelligence company UNICEPTA evaluates the coverage of 118 print and online media. The analysts use a reach-based index score that is based on the weighting factors of reception probability, focus and tonality.

In the third quarter of 2023, the focus of reporting around Oliver Blume was on the reorganization of the Volkswagen Group, particularly with regard to sales of electric cars and the China business. VW's entry into the Chinese electric car manufacturer Xpeng is a "sign that CEO Oliver Blume wants to get the electric transition and especially the Chinese business back on track," writes Der Spiegel. At an event in Barcelona, Blume told VW managers about the upcoming challenges. “We manage our brands with clear, measurable goals,” Blume is quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. “Entrepreneurship in all organizations is our central claim. Everyone makes a contribution to the company's shared success," he added.

The top manager also enjoyed a high media response on the occasion of the IAA Mobility in Munich, where he unveiled an electric GTI and announced faster charging times. Blume continues to champion Germany as an industrial location, stating in an interview with Bild am Sonntag: "We have a very high level of professional qualification, many years of experience and often a pioneering spirit. In addition, Germany continues to have first-class research capacities. Now we need to focus on the right topics and pick up speed."
 

CEO Zipse positions himself against a phase-out of combustion engines, Christian Sewing apologizes for problems at Postbank

The IAA Mobility also generated a lot of attention for other German car manufacturers. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse jumped from eighth to second place in the third quarter. In particular, Zipse attracts media attention with his doubts about Europe's electric car strategy and the phase-out of the internal combustion engine. In an interview with Handelsblatt, the CEO criticizes Germany for relying on just one drive technology, "instead of harnessing the full range of this industry's innovative power” - even though "electromobility is the most important path for individual mobility in the future." In the Financial Times, Zipse warns that mid-market manufacturers in the UK and EU will not be able to compete with Chinese rivals on price when it comes to electric cars. "The base car market segment will either vanish or will not be done by European manufacturers. I want to send a message: I see that as an imminent risk," the Financial Times quotes him as saying. The coverage also focuses on Zipse's announcement at the IAA Mobility that the carmaker will launch six new electric vehicles on the market in the next two years, dubbed "New Class". The extension of Zipse's contract until 2026 is also discussed in the media.

Christian Sewing (Deutsche Bank) comes in third in the CEO Impact Ranking. The media celebrates the top manager for the good half-year 2023 results and his "pragmatic leadership". Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung notes that Deutsche Bank "confidently" weathered the crisis in the spring, when US financial institutions stumbled. Criticism, on the other hand, followed the problems with the integration of Postbank into Deutsche Bank's IT, which had led to numerous customer complaints. The fact that Sewing commented on this at a conference and apologized publicly provoked a broad media response. "We have not lived up to our responsibility here," Sewing is quoted as saying by Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Deutsche Bank wants to get the most serious problems at its Postbank subsidiary under control by mid-October. [...] Deutsche Bank will now have to work all the harder to completely resolve the issues quickly and win back trust," the newspaper adds.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger in 4th place, Ola Källenius (Mercedes-Benz) follows in 5th place

In the third quarter, Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger once again has a place among the top managers with the highest media impact. He scores particularly well in the media with the half-year figures and the very good order situation of the defense group. "Never before has Rheinmetall received so many orders in such a short time as in recent months. The order backlog climbed to more than EUR 30 billion for the first time," writes Die Welt. For the year as a whole, the sales volume is expected to climb from EUR 6.4 billion to EUR 7.4-7.6 billion. Süddeutsche Zeitung highlights Papperger's business acumen: "The fact that war is more than attack and defense, but also the right moment to make money, is something hardly anyone in the industry has understood as well as Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger." The groundbreaking ceremony for the F35 parts factory generates further media attention for the top manager.

Fifth place in the CEO Impact Ranking goes to Ola Källenius, CEO of Mercedes-Benz, whose contract was recently extended until May 2029. "Ola Källenius has steered Mercedes-Benz back to the road to success and made the brand more luxury-oriented in order to maintain the double-digit return on investment, which has risen in recent years, in the long term. To achieve this, the carmaker has been shifting its focus to luxury models and thinning out its compact car lineup for some time now," according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

At the IAA Mobility, the CEO presented the Stuttgart-based carmaker's Concept CLA. The new CLA series is to be launched next year and will have a 30 to 35 percent greater range. At the same time, the top manager makes it clear that he expects "higher costs for electric cars in the foreseeable future" and an increasing " intensity of competition," Manager Magazin points out. In order to secure profitability, "work must be done on all parts of the company, such as fixed costs or in sales," the magazine adds. The CEO is optimistic about the future of the German car industry: "The inventive spirit of our industry is unbroken, and we are not lacking in ambition and visions for the future. What some people are lacking is perhaps a little confidence on the way forward," he says in an interview with Manager Magazin, in which he also advocates structured immigration in view of the shortage of skilled workers. "We have top people in the country. But we need all the top people we can get: more engineers, more software specialists, more AI experts. Europe needs to be 'the place to be' for these people." By 2050, there will probably be almost 10 percent fewer people living in Europe. That's why we need structured immigration."

The other positions in the top 10 ranking: Roland Busch (Siemens, sixth place), Bjørn Gulden (Adidas, seventh place), Markus Steilemann (Covestro, eighth place), Guillaume Faury (Airbus, ninth place) and Martin Brudermüller (BASF, tenth place).

For the CEO ranking in the third quarter of 2023, UNICEPTA evaluated around 2,035 articles from 118 German and international print and online media published from July to September 2023. The ranking is based on results from UNICEPTA's "DAX Benchmark." With the benchmark, the media intelligence provider continuously records the media presence of all DAX companies and their CEOs as well as the reception probability, focus and tonality of media coverage.