At a meeting in December, the Supervisory Board of ZF Friedrichshafen AG appointed Dr.-Ing. Franz-Josef Paefgen as its new chairman. He will succeed Prof. Dr. Giorgio Behr. The renowned automotive expert Paefgen has been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2008.
"ZF has successfully embarked on a long-term strategy to address the challenges of the automotive industry, showing excellent developments over the past few years. We want to continue on this course," said Paefgen.
"The shareholders welcome the appointment of renowned expert Dr. Paefgen to head up the Supervisory Board," explained Andreas Brand, first mayor of the city of Friedrichshafen and representing the Zeppelin Foundation, together with Joachim Meinecke, representing the Ulderup Foundation.
Since 1976, industry expert Paefgen has held various managerial positions in the automotive industry. From 1995 until 2002, he was member of the Board of Audi AG, and from 1997, he was chairman of the Board of Management. From March 2002, he was responsible for the Bentley brand, and as chief representative of Volkswagen AG, was also responsible for Volkswagen's Corporate Research and Motorsports. Between 2003 and 2005, Mr. Paefgen was head of Bugatti Engineering GmbH. From 2007 up to his retirement in 2011, he was president of Bugatti Automobiles S.A.S. and Bugatti International S.A.
According to Paefgen, "It is vital to settle down now and concentrate on our business and the future transformation of the automotive industry. I would like to make my contribution to this as chairman of the Supervisory Board."
