Read More Toyota, VW duke it out for sales crown In a Wall St Journal interview published in March 2006, Piech, already chairman of the supervisory board at the time, said it was an "open issue" whether the contract of then-CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder would be extended because of opposition from labour representatives. In November 2006, VW announced that Pischetsrieder had agreed to resign, and in 2007 it installed Winterkorn, then a close ally of Piech and head of VW's Audi division. In 2009, Piech publicly damaged the reputation of Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and chief financial officer Holger Haerter.