The BMW Supervisory Board has appointed current Strategy Chief Raymond Wittman as a new member of the Board of Management. At the Annual General Meeting in May, he will take over the Production division when current Production Board Member Milan Nedeljković assumes the position of Chairman of the Board.
It had already been confirmed last December that the Supervisory Board would need to appoint a new board member for production. The move followed the announcement that Milan Nedeljković, currently responsible for production, will succeed Oliver Zipse as BMW CEO at the Annual General Meeting in May.
BMW has now selected an internal successor: 47-year-old Raymond Wittmann has been with the BMW Group since 2015 and has headed Corporate Strategy and Development since 2024. During his eleven years at BMW, Wittmann has held several management positions across different divisions, including in production, which will be central to his new role.
Aerospace engineer
Among other positions, he served as Head of Assembly at the Munich plant, CFO for the Americas sales region, and project manager for the establishment of the San Luis Potosí production site in Mexico.
The future Production Director also brings a technical background: he holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering and has previously worked as a partner at an international strategy consultancy.
“Raymond Wittmann combines strategic thinking with operational excellence and business responsibility. With his broad, cross-divisional experience and international perspective, he has the key qualities for leading the production division,” said Dr. Nicolas Peter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of BMW AG.
“Raymond Wittmann complements the future Board of Management team led by Milan Nedeljković with the right strengths and skills. The Supervisory Board is very confident that the Board of Management, in its new composition, will continue to drive the success of the BMW Group in the future.”
Continuity
Wittmann will initially continue the work of his predecessor, Nedeljković: BMW is in the midst of rolling out its ‘Neue Klasse’, the new platform for electric vehicles that introduces significant changes, such as advances in battery technology and an electronic architecture that now relies on a few central computers.
At the new BMW plant in Debrecen, Hungary, series production of the iX3 has already begun under Nedeljković. In contrast, the Munich plant will transition from pre-series production of the i3 sedan to full-scale production later this year.
Among other tasks, Wittmann will oversee the rollout of the ‘Neue Klasse’ across additional BMW plants worldwide, including the Mexican plant in San Luis Potosí, which he once helped establish.
The position of Production Director at BMW has long served as a key career stepping stone: since Norbert Reithofer (2006–2015), the Production Director has consistently been appointed as the new BMW CEO.
EU criticism of the CEO
In an interview with the German Manager Magazin, current BMW CEO Oliver Zipse has criticised the EU Commission’s ‘Made in Europe’ initiative, saying it falls far short of what European industry needs. “It is beyond me how one can miss the mark so badly when it comes to what is actually a sensible goal.”
“Part of the proposal is the preferential promotion of fully electric small cars with a maximum length of 4.20 meters. There is no basis whatsoever for this arbitrary length specification, neither technical nor economic.”
