Hiltrud Werner

Werner was born in Bad Doberan, East Germany, on April 16, 1966.[3] Both of her parents worked in church service: her father was a deacon in a nursing home and her mother was a secretary.[1]

Werner graduated high school in Apolda,[4] then completed an apprenticeship as a skilled worker in textile technology in Mühlhausen, Thuringia, in 1985.[3] She studied "Mathematical Methods and Data Processing in Business" at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, where she received a degree in economics in 1989.[1][5]

Werner began her career in 1991 as a project manager at the consulting firm Softlab GmbH in Munich, shortly after moving to West Germany.[1][6] At the time, most women who had children did not work outside the home in West Germany, and out of the firm's 850 employees she was the only mother working full-time.[4]

In 1996, Werner moved to BMW AG where she held various positions during her tenure including head of the IT department of BMW Bank,[5][7] head of the BMW AG audit department for the United Kingdom and Ireland, and head of group internal audit.[6] She relocated to the United Kingdom in 2003 to audit internally for Rolls Royce, Mini, and BMW factory and its subsidiaries.[3][7] Werner returned to Germany in 2007 and led the internal audit department of BMW's worldwide group financial services.[7]

In 2011, she joined MAN SE as chief audit executive for the MAN Group.[6] Werner became head of group internal audit at the automotive manufacturing company ZF Friedrichshafen in 2014.[6]

In 2016, Werner joined Volkswagen Group as head of group audit[6][7] and was appointed to Volkswagen's board of management, responsible for integrity and legal affairs in 2017.[5][2] In her role at Volkswagen, Werner oversees the compliance and integrity teams for Volkswagen and its 12 brands.[7] She was tasked with restructuring the compliance culture to ensure that the Volkswagen emissions scandal or a similar crisis would not happen again.[7][2] Werner is also a member of the supervisory board of Audi AG, Porsche AG, Seat SA, and Traton SE.[8][9]

Werner is part of a small minority of women and East German business executives serving on the boards of German companies.[10][4] She is the first East German and second woman ever to serve on the Volkswagen Group board of management.[4] As of 2019, she is one of three women from East Germany who serve on the board of a DAX company, out of approximately 200 board members of the 30 companies on the index.[1][10] She is an advocate for equal pay and equal opportunities for women.[2]

In 2019, she received the "Mentor Award of the Year for Advancement of Women in Compliance" from C5 Communications.[11]

Werner is married and has two children.[8]

• Official Volkswagen AG biography