It’s been over a year since Cadillac parted ways from its former boss, Johan de Nysschen. He headed up General Motors’ luxury arm for four years after time at Audi and Infiniti and now he’s back in the Volkswagen Group family. Everyone boomerangs around this industry, apparently!
De Nysschen is now Volkswagen’s new chief operating officer in North America, the automaker announced via a press release. He’ll start on Oct. 1 and report to Scott Keogh, the head of Volkswagen Group of America.
Prior to Volkswagen, de Nysschen headed up Cadillac from 2014 to 2018, overseeing its controversial move to Manhattan from Michigan and attempts to out-German the Germans. (It didn’t work.)
He headed up Infiniti for two years and Audi of America for eight before that. But from 1993 to 2004, he was an Audi general manager in South Africa and the president of Audi Japan. This move back to Volkswagen must feel at least somewhat familiar, if not a step down from once running Audi here. But what do I know.
Volkswagen’s release says de Nysschen will
...streamline the executive reporting structure and let the brand better coordinate and align operations in the region. VW created the regional structure in 2016 to let the teams closest to the business make more of the decisions that affect the brand in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Maybe if we yell at him loud enough, he’ll let us have the eighth-gen Golf R.