Hoerndlein to lead vehicle logistics for Volkswagen Group Logistics; Bronder moves to SAIC JV

Peter Hoerndlein will take over from Oliver Bronder on 1 June as managing director for vehicle logistics at Volkswagen Group Logistics (Volkswagen Konzernlogistik), the group’s logistics procurement, steering and governing organisation, which includes central management and operations of logistics in Europe and international freight, and for short-sea and deep-sea ro-ro shipping.

Hoerndlein spent more than six years with Volkswagen Group and Traton Group commercial vehicle subsidiary, MAN Truck and Bus, where he most recently led procurement for the bus division. MAN Truck and Bus has not yet appointed a successor. He was previously senior vice-president for brand logistics at the truckmaker. Hoerndlein also previously held leading logistics role at BMW Group, including as head of factory shipping and vehicle distribution and head of transport logistics.

Oliver Bronder had led vehicle logistics for Group Logistics since 2021, which he joined after holding many supply chain roles at Porsche, including as head of brand logistics. His new position, as head of logistics for SAIC-Volkswagen, has been much coveted within VW Group, with industry veterans such as Dr Susanne Lehmann’s previously heading it up. Lehmann, who became managing director for VW Group in Malaysia at the beginning of this year, had held the role of executive director of logistics at SAIC-VW from 2021 to December 2023. Pan Rongshen, who has worked in a variety of logistics functions across SAIC and the joint venture, was confirmed in a leading logistics role at the joint venture at the start of the year.

Oliver Bronder will take responsibility across all logistics functions for SAIC-Volkswagen, which was first formed in 1984 and currently offers more than 15 model families in the Chinese market under the VW and Skoda brands. It has one of the largest and most complex supply chains across China, including nine manufacturing plants, including its main base in Anting, near Shanghai, and other plants in Nanjing, Ningbo, Changsha, Yizheng and Urumqi. SAIC-VW was among the first across the group to produce electric vehicles, including the MEB platform, which has been in production since 2020. 

Commenting on the announcement on LinkedIn, Simon Motter, head of Volkswagen Group Logistics thanked Bronder for the “trusting and close cooperation over the past three years”.

Hoerndlein will be taking over Bronder’s focus on reliability, transparency and the responsibility strategic importance of logistics within the wider VW Group. In 2020, when he was head of logistics at MAN Truck & Bus, Hoerndlein told Automotive Logistics that communication was a key success factor that had opened up new channels with tier suppliers – something that has been repeated across the wider VW Group as a key area of focus and which Bronder has been establishing in the logistics division .

Bronder, who was a keynote speaker at the 2024 Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Europe conference this past March in Bonn, Germany, said at that the time that supply chain disruption had enabled VW Group Logistics to make decisions on how to solve issues more quickly, with transparency and data at the heart of this.

He said that VW Group Logistics had come out the other side of the crisis with a clear agenda for decarbonising logistics in three areas; firstly, through increasing rail capacity powered by green electricity for vehicle and battery shipments, second, through adopting electric trucks and LNG ships, and finally through the future use of synthetic fuels, with long-term plans for ammonia, to power vessels.