Dr. Kurt Michels (46), previously Chief Compliance Officer Trucks & Vans & Buses of Daimler AG, has been appointed as Chief Compliance Officer of the Volkswagen Group with effect from April 1. In this position, he is to succeed Dr. Frank Fabian (50), who is joining Wolfsburg AG as Speaker of the Management Board on April 1.
After studying law and obtaining his doctorate in Tübingen, Michels started his career with Daimler-Benz AG as an in-house attorney for purchasing and sales law in 1998. From 2006, he headed the Product Safety & Regulatory Department as associate general counsel. In this function, he held global responsibility for the topics of product safety, product liability prevention, emissions law, technical compliance, criminal law and public law. In addition, he provided support in connection with US class actions. In 2011, Michels was appointed Chief Compliance Officer for Trucks and Vans and in 2013 also for the Buses sector. In this function, he was responsible for the development and implementation of a compliance program for worldwide corruption prevention, for the sustained safeguarding of compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements and for the prevention of money laundering. During the monitorship of Daimler AG, Michels cooperated very intensively and successfully with the US authorities and with the compliance monitor appointed by them.
Fabian holds a doctorate in law and started his career in 1996 as an attorney-at-law. He joined the Volkswagen Group in 2001 and then held various responsible positions in the legal sector. He was appointed Head of Governance, Risk & Compliance in 2011. Volkswagen thanks Frank Fabian for his commitment to the further development of compliance and risk management systems and for his specialist support for liaison with the US authorities. Before joining the Volkswagen Group, he was a self-employed attorney-at-law.
