Dr. Rainer Fessel (Braunschweig, 1966) has been appointed new Director of the SEAT factory in Martorell. Until now, Dr. Fessel headed the plant located in Chengdu (China) of FAW-Volkswagen, a joint-venture founded in 1991 between Chinese automotive manufacturer FAW and the Volkswagen Group. Dr. Fessel is replacing Steffen Reiche, who has been appointed president of Volkswagen de Mexico.
In his new position, Dr. Fessel, who will report to SEAT’s Vice-president for Production and Logistics, will be directly responsible for the plant with the highest vehicle output in Spain. Since 2009, production at SEAT Martorell has increased by more than 50%, and today the factory makes four models on three production lines: the new Ibiza and Arona (Line 1), the Leon (Line 2) and the Audi Q3 (Line 3), which will be replaced by the Audi A1 in the second half of this year. In total, more than 8,000 direct employees make up the workforce at this factory, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2018
Dr. Fessel oversees more than 8K employees and a daily output of 2.3K vehicles.
Dr. Rainer Fessel holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences from Clausthal University of Technology and a degree in Technical Engineering from the Carolo-Wilhelmina Technical University of Braunschweig. He began his career at Volkswagen in 1995, as an assembly technical officer. After occupying different positions of responsibility at the Wolfsburg factory, in 2010 he was appointed Director of the chassis development department, where he remained until 2013 when he became production Director at the plant in Zwickau. He subsequently transferred to China in June of 2016 to head the FAW-Volkswagen plant in Chengdu.