Volkswagen AG announced that Martin Sander will become the new Board Member for Sales, Marketing and After Sales at Volkswagen Passenger Cars on July 1, 2024. He succeeds Imelda Labbe, who has headed the department for the past two years. Imelda Labbe is leaving the company for personal reasons as part of a retirement plan.

Sander is moving from the Ford Motor Company to Wolfsburg and will report directly to Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schafer. Martin Sander was most recently Chairman of the Board of Management of Ford-Werke GmbH and General Manager Ford Model e for Ford of Europe. He was responsible for the development of electric vehicles as well as the development of software and services for connected vehicles for Ford in Europe.

The graduated engineer Martin Sander can look back on a 25-year career in the automotive industry. He has held a number of different management positions at Audi AG in North America and Europe. These include positions as Senior Vice President of Sales for Europe, Germany, Americas and the UK.

Born in Hildesheim, he studied mechanical engineering and graduated from the Technical University of Braunschweig with a degree in engineering (TU). Imelda Labbe has more than 35 years of experience in the international automotive industry. From 1986 to 2013, she held international management positions at Opel and General Motors (GM) - including as Opel Head of Quality at the Antwerp plant and as Opel Head of Sales for the German market.

In 2013, she moved to the Volkswagen Group as Spokeswoman of the Board of Management of SKODA AUTO Germany. In summer 2016, she took over as Global Head of After Sales at the Volkswagen Group and was most recently responsible for Business Development at Volkswagen AG. From March 2022 until her appointment to the Board of Management of the Volkswagen brand in May 2022, Labbe was Spokeswoman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen OTLG.

She holds a degree in business administration and a Master of Science in Management from Stanford University.