Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Milberg will be chiefly remembered as the man who decided to pull the plug on Rover, although he has had an enormous impact on the company and the brand during his brief tenure as BMW 's Chairman of the Board of Management. He will be succeeded by the CFO, Dr. Helmut Panke.

Background

Born in 1943, Professor Milberg was named head of the Automatic Lathe Division at Werkzeugmaschinenfabrik Gildemeister AG in 1978.

In 1981 he accepted a position as professor for machine tools and operations research at Munich Technical University.

In November 1993, Professor Milberg was named the Member of the Board of Management in charge of Production at BMW.

Since 5 February 1999 he has been the Chairman of the Board of Management, the highest position in the company. In a tumultuous meeting, Milberg replaced Bernd Pischetsrieder, who has since been named CEO of Volkswagen.

During his tenure as CEO, Professor Milberg has overseen a number of changes at BMW that have helped improve sales and profits.

Accomplishments

Professor Milberg's long list of accomplishments have included:

Building the first US assembly plant at Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Introducing the E46, the new generation of 3 Series cars.
Expanding the Motorsport role with the new M3, M5 and MZ3 supercars.
Creating the classic roadster of our time, the Z8.
Introducing the X5, the world's first Sport Activity Vehicle.
Racing in Formula One for the first time in almost 20 years while continuing to race in other events like ALMS and ADAC.
Winning the 24 Hours of LeMans with the BMW LMR.
Negotiating the sale of Rover assets.
Redefining a classic in the new BMW MINI and MINI Cooper S.
Designing the most technological advanced vehicle of our time, the new BMW 7 Series.
Positioning for the launch of Rolls-Royce in 2003.
Using innovative marketing techniques, including James Bond cars and BMW Films.
Promoting the use of Clean Energy as the fuel of tomorrow.

Professor Milberg was especially proud of the iDrive technology in the new 7 Series. He said in a speech, "iDrive is a new BMW milestone in improving interactive driving. (Contemporary models) have a cockpit that is not very driver-friendly. Instead, we have taken the driver area apart completely, analyzed it and restructured it in levels, based on frequency of use and relevance."

Another one of his favorite projects was the BMW concept of Clean Energy. As an alternative to fossil-fuels, the BMW Group has developed the use of hydrogen for mobility in an effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions and safeguard oil supplies. The Clean Energy Concept has developed the use of hydrogen that can be created from renewable energy resources as an absolutely emissions-free car fuel. "Our answer to the search for new, environmentally viable fuels is – driving on sun and water," Milberg said.

In a recent speech, Dr. Milberg said, "We therefore must ask what we would like to read or hear about ourselves in 5 years:

Attractive employer
Strongest brands
Most successful products
Highest customer satisfaction
Highest volume of the premium suppliers
Highest profitability
Highest agility"

It is a testament to his character that being a good boss and making quality products rank well above the profit motive. Indeed, as he would say, profitability comes from having top people and top products.