Wolfgang R. Habbel

Wolfgang R. Habbel (born March 24, 1924 in Dillenburg ; † November 28, 2014 in Ingolstadt ) was a German manager and Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi AG and a member of the Board of Management of Volkswagenwerk AG.

Life

He passed his Abitur in Koblenz in 1942 . He was then called up for military service. After returning from captivity , he studied law and graduated with the 1st state examination. In 1950 he joined the then AUTO UNION GmbH , Ingolstadt , as assistant to the management .

In the first few years of his work at AUTO UNION GmbH in Ingolstadt and Düsseldorf, he worked primarily in the personnel and social area. For a while he was in charge of the export tasks for DKW motorcycles that were beginning at that time, and temporarily he also took on managerial tasks in the organizational area. In addition, he worked on his legal doctoral thesis and in 1955 completed a six-month Fulbright degree in social and personnel policy at universities in Vermont, Wisconsin and New York (all USA). In 1957 he received his doctorate from the University of Cologne with Hans Carl Nipperdey to Dr. iur.

In 1959, H. moved to the Ford factory in Cologne, where he took over the management of the "Basic personnel policy issues" department. After various other jobs in the HR department at Ford and two years at Böhringer Ingelheim as managing partner, he moved back to Audi NSU Auto Union AG in Ingolstadt in 1971 . His appointment as a board member responsible for human resources and social affairs at Audi NSU Auto Union AG took place on October 18, 1971. From January 1, 1979, Wolfgang R. Habbel headed Audi NSU Auto Union AG as chairman of the board. During his tenure as Chairman of the Board of Management of Audi NSU Auto Union AG and, since 1985, of AUDI AG, important decisions were made regarding the technical and innovative development of the company as well as regarding the higher positioning of the Audi product range. On January 1, 1988, he retired and handed over the post of Audi CEO to Ferdinand Piëch . From 1988 to 1993 Habbel was a member of the Supervisory Board of AUDI AG. Wolfgang R. Habbel also held numerous other supervisory board mandates and was honored many times for his achievements. Among other things, he was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1982, the State Medal for special services to the Bavarian economy in 1984 and the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class in 1987 . In 1984 the industry magazine voted Wolfgang R. Habbel "Manager of the Year".