The Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles brand (VWCV) is restructuring its managementfor the future of commercial vehicle development: With immediate effect Kai Grünitz has been appointed Head of Development. Also immediately, Christian Senger is taking over as Head of Development for Autonomous Driving and MaaS/TaaS at the light commercial vehicle manufacturer. The two men will work very closely together both in terms of their areas of work and organisationally, and both will report directly to the Chairman of the Board of Management, Dr Carsten Intra.
“For us at VWCV, Kai Grünitz is at this time precisely the right person to have in the important position of Head of Development”, says Carsten Intra. “He knows the team and our business. His previous experience in various different development roles makes him predestined for this task. Kai Grünitz is taking over both responsibility for our brand’s product development and for the joint projects with our partner Ford.”
Carsten Intra continues: “Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is responsible within the Group for the development of autonomous driving. In Christian Senger we have now brought on board a proven expert in the forward-looking areas of software, electrics/electronics and e-mobility. He will thus give us new inspiration in the development of autonomous driving and the associated areas of business and from his very first day will help us to achieve our ambitious targets.”
“We are thus filling two key positions at VWCV with outstanding candidates, who, working closely side by side, will help shape the transformation and the future of the brand”, says Intra, summing up.
In 2014, he became Head of Mechatronic Chassis Systems and thereafter held further roles in commercial vehicle development. Since the start of this year, Kai Grünitz has been working in his role as CTO Autonomous Vehicle & T7.
Christian Senger is also a graduate mechanical engineer. Latterly, he was CEO of the Car.Software Organisation, which is working among other projects on creating a dedicated operating system for all Volkswagen Group models, an automobile data cloud and a new form of electronics architecture. Before that he was Head of the e-Mobility Model Range at the Volkswagen brand, building this up and decisively driving forward the brand’s electric car offensive. He was thus responsible for the Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB) and for the vehicles of the ID family. Prior to joining Volkswagen in 2016, Senger worked in senior roles at a number of different companies. These included Head of Systems & Technology at Continental Automotive GmbH and Head of Product Concepts, Energy Management and Development of Complete Vehicle Concepts of the BMW i product family (BMW i3 and i8) at BMW Group.