Porsche Appoints Bernhard Maier to the Board

German carmaker Porsche announced today new appointments to the Supervisory Board, with the naming of Bernhard Maier as the leader of the Sales and Marketing Division taking point. The appointment was necessary after Klaus Berning, the current board member in charge of sales, decided to leave the carmaker.

According to industry sources, Berning's decision to leave Porsche is not actually his, as he had to pay for the declining sales of the 911 sports car in the second half of 2009. The Porsche 911 sales saw a massive 45 percent decline, with only 7,400 units sold. Overall, Porsche dropped 24 percent in the fiscal year which started on the July 31, 2009, to 75,238 units.

The 25 percent decrease registered in the first four months compared to the previous year has been brought down to a figure of 3.1 percent for the full six month period.

Maier was until recently Chairman of the Management of Porsche Deutschland GmbH. He started his career as a car mechanic and joined BMW in 1988. He came to porsche in 2001 and was responsible for the brand's sales in the home market.

Aside for Maier's appointment, Porsche decided to increase the number of board members to 20. Wolfgang Porsche has been unanimously re-elected as Chairman of the board, seconded by Uwe Huck, who is also representing the employees.

Porsche added Martin Winterkorn, Hans Dieter Potsch, Javier Garcia Sanz, Christian Klingler and Horst Neumann, while Ferdinand Piech, Ulrich Lehner and Josef Ahorner left the board.