Karl-Thomas Neumann
Step into Karl-Thomas Neumann’s office at Continental, the German car parts supplier, and you notice a small car designed for a child. One of the best-equipped toys in the world has everything Mr Neumann developed at Volkswagen: satellite navigation, and state-of-art entertainment with CD and DVD players housed in a tiny plastic shell.
Despite the complexity of the devices, everything works together. Since Conti’s €11.4bn purchase of VDO from Siemens last year, which catapulted it into the group of the world’s leading suppliers, Mr Neumann has to achieve something similar with his company.
