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Wednesday September 23, 2015

// September 23rd, 2015 // Daily News

VW board meets: Crunch time for CEO Winterkorn
Catherine Boyle
CNBC.com

Usually, board meetings are reasonably tame affairs. Yet Wednesday’s meeting of Volkswagen’s supervisory board’s presidium, a mixture of executives and shareholders’ representatives, is likely to have seismic consequences for the automaker and its embattled chief executive, Martin Winterkorn.
The world’s second-largest carmaker is being engulfed by an emissions scandal which has wiped nearly 26 billion euros ($29 billion) off its market value this week. In this kind of situation, with 11 million cars potentially affected, jobs are put in jeopardy and even once-mighty companies can be permanently damaged.
The board will need to act fast to try and address the reputational fallout. CNBC looks at who to watch in Wednesday’s meeting.
Martin Winterkorn
Rumors of the chief executive’s demise on Tuesday proved to be premature, but there are still questions over how much longer he can hang on. The long-serving VW executive already survived one coup attempt by chairman Ferdinand Piech, and this could be exactly the opportunity some members of the board could grab to finally oust him.
VW warns on $7.3B hit: Scandal threatens Germany
He has become the public face of the scandal, with allegations that he ignored warning signs about the emissions in 2014. In a video on the carmaker’s website yesterday, he admitted: “I do not have all the answers to the questions but we are working hard to find out exactly what happened.”
Whether he will continue that work remains to be seen.
Ferdinand Piech
One of the most influential players in the global car industry, this scion of the Porsche family has already failed to engineer Winterkorn’s departure earlier this year, which resulted in his own departure as chairman of the board.
Although he is no longer on the supervisory board, the architect of much of Volkswagen’s success in recent years still controls a large chunk of the Porsche family’s shareholding in Germany’s national carmaker, and his presence will be felt at Wednesday’s meeting via their representatives.
The Workers
Trade unions are still an important voice in Volkswagen, and Bernd Osterloh, their main representative, has written in a letter (as reported by German newspaper Bild) that they “will do everything possible in the supervisory board meetings this week to ensure the matter is cleared up quickly and that personnel consequences are drawn.”
Government of Lower Saxony
The German state where Volkswagen was founded still has a substantial stake and two supervisory board seats. One of those members, Olaf Lies, the economics minister for Lower Saxony, has already gone public with his call for changes at Volkswagen. He may get this wish soon.
– By CNBC’s Catherine Boyle

Today’s Inspiration

“Gird Up” Your Mind

by Joyce Meyer – posted September 23, 2015

Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
– 1 Peter 1:13 NKJV

You and I aren’t accustomed to hearing the phrase “gird up” today. But in biblical times both men and women wore long, skirt-like outfits. If they tried to run in those clothes, there was a good chance they could get tangled up in the long fabrics and stumble. When they needed to move quickly, they gathered the material of their garments and pulled it up so they could walk or run freely. They would “gird up” their clothing.

When the Bible tells us to “gird up the loins” of our minds, I believe it means to get our minds off of everything that would cause us to stumble as we run the race God has set before us. I think it may also refer to concentrating on the thing at hand rather than allowing our thoughts to wander all over the place. God has a good plan for each of us, but we must walk the path that leads us to it.

Focus and concentration are both real challenges in our world today. We have a great deal of information coming at us all the time, and to keep our minds on what our purpose is requires great determination, and even training.

You might get up on Monday and fully intend to start your day by spending time with God in prayer and Bible study. Then you intend to get three specific projects finished that day. You need to go to the grocery store, get some maintenance done on your car, and finish cleaning out a closet that you started working on last week. Your intention is good, but if you don’t focus on those projects, you will surely be pulled away by other things or people. Girding up your mind is another way of saying “stay focused on what you need to do.”

Trust in Him Have you developed an ability to concentrate and focus on what you need to do? In order to stay on God’s track for your life, you must keep focused and trust Him to be your guide.