OREANDA-NEWS. Johann Jungwirth (42) has been appointed as Head of the Volkswagen Group's newly-established Digitalization Strategy Department effective November 1, 2015. Jungwirth moved to the Volkswagen Group from the American IT corporation Apple and reports direct to Matthias M?ller, CEO of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. With the new function and the appointment of Jungwirth, Volkswagen is strongly reinforcing its position in digitalization, which is a very important future field for the automotive industry.

Jungwirth was named Director, Mac Systems Engineering at Apple in Cupertino, CA (USA), in 2014. He was responsible for innovation in design and engineering in product development as well as hiring, growing and leading a multicultural research & development team and supporting the Special Projects Group.

In 2009 Jungwirth was appointed as President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America to head the Research & Development Center in Sunnyvale, CA (USA), with additional international locations. From the center in Silicon Valley, Jungwirth and his team were responsible for all research and development business units in the US market such as autonomous driving, powertrain and electric drive, technology and vehicle development, as well as telematics and user interaction design. From 2008 to 2014 Jungwirth was also Vice-President Infotainment and Telematics responsible for all research, engineering and product development for infotainment and connected car solutions.

Johann Jungwirth was born on May 3, 1973, in Reu?markt, Romania. He holds an electrical engineering degree Dipl.-Ing. (BA) from Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart. He also participated in the International Motor Vehicle Program of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA (USA).

Johann Jungwirth is married and has two children.