Fast-moving Dane focuses on putting Volkswagen in the top spot

Lars Himmer is a stand-up guy who clearly likes life on the move. The 6ft4 Dane eschews the traditional executive throne in favour of standing at a shoulder-height desk. It's the dominant feature in his otherwise sparsely decorated office at the headquarters of VW Group Ireland.

“It’s better for your back and posture to stand while you work,” he explains. He says he has considered adding a treadmill to the desk so he can stroll a few miles while he works on the laptop. His genial tone and the Danish tendency towards irony makes it hard to judge if he’s joking or not.

Such an appetite for mobility would be fitting for the youthful-looking Scandinavian former army officer and ex-diplomat. From the age of 15 he's been on the move, initially between the US and Denmark before the potential of post-communist Russia lured him east. During this time he has learned nine languages, sold chewing gum to former Soviets and trucks to newly independent Balkans and Baltics.

Himmer is only two months at the wheel of the Irish division of the German motoring behemoth, in charge of a portfolio of brands that includes Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, Seat and Porsche, along with their various commercial vehicle divisions. In total Himmer's brands account for nearly 24 per cent of the Irish new car market.

The move to Dublin marks his 27th address of more than three months.

Born in Denmark’s second largest city of Aarhus, Himmer’s first big move was during a year-long student exchange with a US high school 40 miles southeast of Birmingham, Alabama.

“Homework was a strange concept to them but I actually enjoyed it so I was bumped up three grades shortly after arriving.” While academia was evidently not a forte of the school, sport dominated life at Childersburg High School, particularly basketball, which meant Himmer fitted right in. “I was already 1m 94cm (6ft4) and the only white kid on the team. When I got back to Denmark, apart from school basketball was my life.”

At 18 Himmer was a willing conscript into the Danish air force. “I was happy going. Military life is good training. The discipline of learning the benefits of hard work is good.”

From there he went to Aarhus University to study international business, which involved a third-year internship in Boston with the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. “They were pitching to Lego to locate the first Legoland in the US at Cape Cod. So we were helping the state of Massachusetts in the investment proposals to Lego.”

Harvard mentor

During this time Himmer got to follow a couple of classes at Harvard and met the renowned business strategist and academic Michael Porter. It seemed Himmer’s career path was mapped out: complete the degree and then a master’s, possibly an MBA at Harvard.

“I was thinking I could get the MBA, the Rolex and the Porsche. I could read another 100 books and write another 50 papers, but is that going to fulfil me? In the dorm at college there was a guy who went on to do a special Russian programme in the army. I found it fascinating that in two years I could get an officer’s training and become fluent in Russian. This was in 1991 and I thought with the fall of the wall, this is a huge market of 350 million people.” So after completing his bachelor’s degree he returned to military life.

“It was eight hours of classes, eight hours of homework minimum, and eight hours of exercise, eating and sleep. At the weekends the only difference was there were no classes but you did have to study eight hours a day.”

Normally 15 students would be chosen to start the course and 10 would get through. Of those, three would get the chance to go to Moscow directly and work at the embassy. Himmer was one of the three to make the final cut.

Arriving in Moscow in 1994 during the eventful presidency of Boris Yeltsin he first worked in security and consular affairs, then for a year as commercial attaché.

There he encountered a Danish company, called Dandy at the time, making chewing gum sold under the name Stimorol. “They had a plant close to St Petersburg and I was helping them on the government relations side. Then when my commercial attaché posting was coming to an end in 1998 I was asked if I wanted come back to the foreign ministry in Denmark. I was thinking of a life in the public service where the culture is all about avoiding risk and playing it safe. In comparison Russia was booming and there was an energy to it all.”

Once more Himmer veered off the traditional route, joining Dandy first as executive assistant to the chief executive back in Denmark, then as site manager in Russia and finally HR director for its entire operations in Russia, the CIS and the Baltic states.

The firm’s chief executive had visited Russia in 1992, spotted the potential and, at a cost of just $25,000, ran a hugely successful TV ad campaign for the Stimorol brand with a distinctly American tone.

“The wealth that was created and distributed – admittedly not evenly – created enormous consumer demand. However, people could not yet afford to buy the new car or the new apartment so in the early 1990s the proportion of salary used on things like chewing gum or clothes was extremely high. It was boom days for many FMCG companies.”

By 2001 Himmer had 3,500 staff reporting to him and was leading an all-out commercial war with arch-rival Wrigleys.

The market was split 50/50 between the two brands. “The battle was intense. We had a staff turnover of about 20 per cent a month. It was almost down to fights in the streets.

“We were very much David – the small Danish company – against the Goliath of US giant Wrigleys. Early entry was the key and the speed with which the small Danish company could move was the root of our success.”

After two years Stimorol had secured its position in the market and Himmer was approached by a former army friend to move into the motor trade. His former commanding officer in Denmark was heading up Volvo Trucks in Serbia and persuaded Himmer to take over the Swedish brand’s operations in Croatia.

Himmer actually had some motoring links in his family – his grandfather had owned a General Motors car dealership in nearby Randers. “Often at the weekends I would spend time at the dealership, both in the showroom and the workshop.”

Despite the childhood memories he had of the car business the move was a major culture shock. “I came from having daily sales meetings, from standing on a step in the office every Friday rallying the staff and running the business on a daily basis, into the truck business, which is most certainly not run on a daily basis.”

Volvo those days had a particularly weak position in the Balkans. “I came in as the seventh director in five years for the Croat team. So it was very much about bringing some stability to the business and I was there for three years, rebuilding confidence with dealers, service partners.”

Success in the Balkans led to a move back north to the Baltics, taking charge of Volvo Trucks’ Latvian operations at a time when it was going through an economic boom. This time his job was all about maintaining success.

Since then his career has driven him back to Russia, from Volvo to MAN Trucks and then to Volkswagen’s head office in Wolfsburg as head of group sales strategy. And now to Ireland.

Himmer has committed to stay at least 3½ years in Ireland, with the aim of maintaining VW Group’s dominant position as economic recovery takes root.

Slow start

January sales perhaps didn’t start out as he would have liked, with Toyota out in front, but Himmer is sanguine. “At VW we are normally slow starters in the beginning of the year, but finish strong. Our very recent launch of the new Passat – with deliveries started only at end of January – made market share last month particularly challenging for us, but we are picking up pace quickly. It will certainly make the race for leadership interesting this year.”

There have been complaints within the motor trade that VW Group is engaging in pre-registrations, whereby dealers or distributors register unsold new cars to bolster their official sales statistics and meet market share targets. These cars then have to be offloaded at a discount, hurting dealer profits and harming customer residuals.

“We look at the market, and we look at what [share] we can get. If we are getting these targets right then we will not see any pre-registrations,” says Himmer.

“What I think is important is that nothing should be done excessively and we need to make certain there is a good balance on having the basics right more so than on having short-term results.”

Is it critical for Volkswagen brand to be the bestseller in Ireland? “It’s very, very important but it’s not a target in itself. It’s the end result of getting other things right. Two weeks ago I met our brand ambassador Joe Schmidt at the launch of the new Passat. He was asked whether Ireland was going to win the Six Nations again. He said he didn’t know, but his job was to get the systems and the skills right and when you have that set then the results will come afterwards.”

The rugby analogy is timely for there are always nerves about sponsorship deals when a new boss arrives. Will the deals such as the one with Leinster rugby and close ties with various FAI clubs continue? “I haven’t started to look at the sponsorship deals yet. Classically Volkswagen has long had a passion for football and I have no reason for changing that today. The same with the rugby deals.

“It’s important that people realise, I’m not here to make any kind of revolution. I’m impressed with the performance here, especially on the back of six years of crisis. The profitability improvements last year in the network are strong, and set to increase further this year. We have struggled on our cost base here so Ireland has been a difficult place to be for everybody but this year we will see it getting better.”

As to predictions for the year ahead he says if he was a betting man he’d be putting his money on new car sales of 120,000 for 2015. But that’s only the start of the recovery.

"If the total market is coming back to 120,000 then I hope we will look back in five years and see 120,000 as a crisis level because naturally the car market here should swing between 130,000 to 160,000. I hope we should hit those level of sales figures as early as next year." CV Name: Lars Himmer Title: Managing director of VW Group Ireland Age: 45 Family: Wife, Nina; daughters, Anna, 12, Caroline, 7; son, Frederik, 9. His wife is the owner of Quickwood, a Danish manufacturing firm of machinery and abrasives for the woodworking industry. Nationality: Danish. What you might expect: The former diplomat has been a Goodwill Ambassador for Copenhagen since 2011, promoting trade and tourism links. What you might not expect: He has tried his hand at learning Irish, adding a cúpla focal to his impressive list of Danish, English, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, German, basic French, Croatian/Serbian and Latvian. "Ireland might be the first country where I do not speak the 'native' language. I studied a little bit of Gaelic over YouTube but I was shocked to find at a management meeting that when I was using a couple of Gaelic phrases only a few people knew what I was trying to say."