Report: Former ZF CEO to Join Volkswagen

Stefan Sommer, who was ousted as CEO of ZF Friedrichshafen AG last December, reportedly will join Volkswagen AG as the company’s purchasing chief.

VW’s supervisory is meeting today to approve Sommer’s appointment, according to Handelsblatt. His new job is expected to start in January.

Sommer would succeed Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, who left VW earlier this year as part of a reorganization stemming from the carmaker’s diesel emissions cheating scandal. Six new executives already have been named to VW’s management board as a result of the crisis.

Sommer’s tenure at ZF included several major acquisitions, including the $12 billion deal to buy TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. in in 2015. The spending spree eventually ran afoul of ZF’s executive board, which triggered his departure along with that of supervisory board chair Giorgio Behr.

Sommer, 55, joined ZF in 2008 and became CEO three years later. He previously held a variety of engineering and executive positions at ITT Automotive and Continental. He has a mechanical engineering degree and a doctorate in control engineering and embedded systems from Germany's Ruhr University.