These days there are those who remember one of the recurring phrases, until last Monday CEO of the Seat and Cupra brands, as an example of their daring mood that sometimes could seem reckless: “Without pressure there is no fun.” At the head of these two brands of the Volkswagen Group for almost five years, Griffiths has pressed and has fun: he has returned to the company to the benefits, has placed the foundations for the transition to the electric car and, while he knew how to deal with the directors of the German matrix, he resigned as president of the employer Anfac and prepared for the growing commercial war.
he was as surprising and lightning as his style, and nobody clarifies why it has occurred: does any signing await him as a prize for his management, or on the contrary it is an undercover dismissal, at a time when Seat needs prudence to face capital challenges for protectionist drifts in the world? Meanwhile, the interim presidency falls to a man from the house, Markus Hauct, who is the best positioned – and the favorite of the unions – for a succession that is expected quickly, in a race in which there are three names on the table, according to knowledgeable sources.
When one leaves, unless it is for health reasons, it is usually for two things: or because there is something better on the horizon, or it is because something does not fit. But in this case no explanation ends up quadrating in these two options. The brief note in which Seat communicated the decision, expressed that it had produced “at its own request with immediate effect to undertake new challenges”, but a day later Griffiths himself suggested in his social networks that these new challenges are not yet defined: “I just wanted everyone to know that I am happy and in a better way that never and I look forward to where my destiny will take me. As my hero David Bowie said. Here, but I promise you will not be boring. ”
“If you had gone to another site, it would be known, unless you have to spend time for reasons of competition,” explains Matías Carnero, president of the Seat Intercentros Committee and a member of the Supervision Council of the Volkswagen Group. The explanation of the signing was simple, for the achievements that Griffiths has obtained: while the German group together closed the 2024 exercise with a reduction in the benefit of more than 30% and announced template cut, 1% more than the historical 2023 record, and 558,100 cars sold of the two Spanish teachings, 7.5% more. Under the baton of Griffiths, Seat returned to benefits in 2022 after two years of losses, thanks to the great commitment of the rebel executive: Cupra is the fastest brand grows in Europe.
With these achievements, Griffiths could be calm, and in the press conference of 2024 results, in which the advances in the transformation of the Martorell factory were also shown – with a new battery assembly plant and with the installation of the new platform on line 1 to manufacture -, he said that there was no other place for him that was not Seat: “This is the final destination of my career,” he said Griffiths, who also renewed in his position last year, even if he did not become public, and is well installed in Barcelona, in a house in the Terramar area of Sitges.
It has not been so, and this manager born in Dukinfield (United Kingdom) in 1966 – although he has German passport and almost his entire career has been linked to the Volkswagen Group – is now without work. At the foot of the factory, a worker comments that among employees they are clear that the consortium has lost confidence in Griffiths, although they do not succeed to guess why. “There is a lot of confusion here, but we are all clear that something has happened with Volkswagen. From one day to another it vanished and has not had contact with anyone or has stomped the factory again. It does not fit that it has voluntarily left, if you wanted to retire here, and it has been meant so much with the wars with the government …”, expresses this employee, referring to the other great storm that starred Griffiths: Two years ago, to protest the lack of government aid to the electric car, a movement that did not sit well in the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, although in December
The truth is that, although Seat is resisting, it has several Damocles swords on top. One is the profitability, which has stagnated and still does not meet the expectations that the matrix has. In 2024, the return on sales was 4.4%, the same as the previous year, so that Griffiths did not meet the objective of reaching 5%. Another sword is that the great bet to relaunch this profitability, the Tavascan coupra is in danger. This electric car is assembled in China, and on it weigh the tariffs of 30.7% that the European Union has imposed on Chinese cars to – Paradoxes of globalization – preserve the European manufacturing industry. , and they can carry many problems for profitability this year and also for the martorell template: European standards allow each electric vehicle produced to compensate for combustion cars emissions. If Seat stops producing tavascan in China because of tariffs, the effect will be noticed in Martorell, where the production of combustion cars will have to be reduced, causing personnel cuts that Griffiths itself warned that it could be around 1,500 jobs.
The United States challenge
Another great challenge also has to do with tariffs, this time those imposed by the president of the United States, Donald Trump. One of the strategies for coupra growth is geographical expansion, especially in the United States market, which Griffiths predicted by the end of this decade. SEAT continues with this vision, and since November. The objective is to export electric and combustion vehicles, and manufacture at least one model from North America. Although it has not yet been detailed in which country it would be manufactured, the idea of doing so in Mexico became strength. In any case, the tariffs Trump have imposed on the automotive industry can stagger this strategy.
In Seat they believe that this time the succession will be rapid for the crucial moment in which the company is located: when Luca de Meo left the company to sign as CEO of Renault in January 2020, the interinity of Carsten Isensee lasted six months, which coincided with the hardest of the pandemic, before Griffiths assumed the command. The British was a man from the house, he had been linked to Volkswagen for two decades and when he was appointed he came from the sales department. Now the best positioned is also from the house, the hitherto executive vice president of Production and Logistics of Seat, Markus Hauct, German born in 1977 in Sao Paulo and formed in Barcelona. He has tune with the government and the unions, and he knows Volkswagen well, but he is not the only one in the race. There are two other names, which have not transcended, and the matrix can always send Martorell to a manager who has to place.
In any case, the style of the new boss will not be the same as Griffiths. Direct and accustomed to speaking without surroundings, the former delegate councilor dresses and combs with a modern and electrical appearance, and over the years it has been mimicked with, which he promoted as a vector of the profitability and electrification of the Spanish manufacturer. In the presentations of the cars models of this young brand, the executive spoke of rebellion, nonconformity, of going against the countercurrent, a mood that sometimes faced him with the executives of Wolfsburg, reluctant in the face of such a provocative style. But Cupra was his obsession and continued to press, to the point that the former leader of the German group, Herbert Diess, he joked that the cupra logo was tattooed in the neck. “I don’t carry tattoos,” he replied.
