Stuttgart / Beijing – Frank Deiss will be the new President and CEO of Beijing Benz Automotive Co., Ltd. (BBAC), effective March 1, 2011. He will succeed Guenter Butschek who becomes the new Head of Operations at Airbus, member of the Airbus Executive Board, and Chairman of the Board of Management of Airbus in Germany.

Ulrich Walker, Chairman and CEO of Daimler Northeast Asia Ltd.: “In the Name of the entire China Executive Board, I would like to thank Guenter Butschek for his commitment and for what he has achieved during the past six years at our Daimler joint venture with Beijing Automotive Industrial Holding. Under his management, we started the production of the C- and E-Class passenger cars here in China. Guenter Butschek successfully and continuously increased capacity, productivity and flexibility of the plant.”

Guenter Butschek began his professional career in 1984 at Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart. After several positions in logistics and procurement, he has taken over management functions in manufacturing in South Africa and the Netherlands. In 2005, Butschek was nominated as the first President and CEO of the newly founded 50:50 joint venture between Daimler AG and Beijing Automotive Industrial Holding. BBAC opened its car plant in 2006 with the production of the E-Class (W211). The current C-Class followed in 2007. Since May 2010 BBAC has been manufacturing a longwheelbase Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which is tailored to meet the needs of the Chinese market.

Butschek’s successor, Frank Deiss (47), has been responsible for the global procurement of production material for Daimler AG’s passenger cars and vans divisions since July 2005. Deiss started his career with the former Daimler-Benz AG as a student of Business Administration in 1984. Since 1994, after various assignments in the group, he has taken over leading functions with increasing responsibilities in procurement and development.

Dr. Klaus Zehender (born in 1967) will take over Mr. Deiss’ responsibilities as Head of Procurement Mercedes-Benz Cars and Vans. He is currently Head of Logistics at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, the company’s largest passenger car production site worldwide. Before that, he led various departments and areas in the Sindelfingen plant, in finance and controlling and strategic planning at Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and smart. Dr. Zehender graduated from Karlsruhe University with a degree in business engineering and has a doctorate in business administration from Stuttgart University. He joined Daimler in 1996.