Marianne Heiß

Marianne Heiß has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG since 14 February 2018.

She was born on 2 November 1972 in Krems an der Donau, Austria. From 1998 to 2002, Ms Heiß studied Accounting & Auditing, and Management, Organisation and Human Resources at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt.

Marianne Heiß began as a bookkeeper at the tax consultancy STABILA in Vienna in 1989.

She worked at Dr. Röhricht – Dr. Schillen, an auditing firm and tax consultancy company in Bielefeld, from 1991 to 1993.

As Head of the Administrations Office at the Dorint AG in Hamelin from 1993 to 1996, Ms Heiß was responsible for the Finance and Accounting department and Human Resources.

In 1996, Marianne Heiß moved to the advertising and communications sector, starting at the BBDO Group, a leading company in its field in Germany.

Her initial post there was Head of Finance and Accounting for the outsourcing specialist SELLBYTEL (Nuremberg) until 1998. From 1999 to 2002, she was the Financial Director of the agencies of BBDO Austria.

As management consultant at BBDO Services GmbH in Düsseldorf from 2002 to 2005, Marianne Heiß was responsible for the integration of new agencies. Ms Heiß was responsible for the BBDO agencies in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Stuttgart as CFO from 2006 to 2011, until she took on responsibility for 18 European countries as the European Finance Director of BBDO Europe with headquarters in London. She held this position from 2011 to 2013.

In June 2013, she was appointed as CFO of the BBDO Group Germany GmbH which has been operating in Germany since 1956. Since March 2019 Ms Heiß is the CEO of the BBDO Group Germany GmbH.

At the end of 2004, Gabler Verlag published her book Strategisches Kostenmanagement in der Praxis (Strategic Cost Management in Practice), followed by YES SHE CAN – Die Zukunft des Management ist weiblich (YES SHE CAN – The Future of Management is Female) in May 2011. From 2015 until 2017, Marianne Heiß was Vice President of the Gesamtverbandes Kommunikationsagenturen (German Association of Communication Agencies).

Marianne Heiß has extensive knowledge and experience in the areas of corporate strategy, sales and marketing, finance and accounting, corporate governance, electric mobility, human resources, as well as particular expertise in the North America market.