By Adeosun Christiana Pelumi (SIWES student D S Adegbenro ICT Polytechnic)
Martina Biene, the Chairperson and Managing Director of Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA), is poised to become the President of the African Association of Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM), succeeding Mike Whitfield, who held the position since July 2020. Whitfield will remain involved with AAAM as the Immediate Past President.
The AAAM, founded in November 2015, is the primary organization committed to advancing and fortifying the automotive industry across Africa. It collaborates with governments to influence policies that attract investments, with the goal of unlocking the continent’s economic potential and uniting a global network of stakeholders dedicated to Africa’s automotive industry development.
Under Whitfield’s leadership, AAAM played a crucial role in creating a Continental Automotive Strategy and Implementation Plan in partnership with various organizations, which was officially adopted by the AfCFTA Council of Ministers in Botswana in February 2023.
An AfCFTA Automotive Task Force was established to oversee and implement this strategy, with a primary focus on resolving Rules of Origin.
AAAM’s significance in advancing the automotive sector has been acknowledged by the private sector, leading to a substantial increase in membership, growing from 17 members in 2020 to the current 63 members.
Martina Biene, with more than two decades of experience in the automotive industry, began her journey with Volkswagen in 2001. She has held various roles in sales, marketing, product planning, and product marketing for luxury vehicles and the Volkswagen brand across Europe and South Africa.
In 2018, she assumed the role of the head of the Volkswagen Brand in South Africa and later returned to Germany in 2020 to lead the Small and Compact Vehicle lineup. In November 2022, she returned to South Africa to take on her current position.
Biene has expressed her commitment to Africa and the automotive industry, citing her passion for the continent following an internship in Cape Town.
She is dedicated to industrializing Africa, creating opportunities, and sustainable jobs. She is honored to follow in Mike Whitfield’s footsteps and looks forward to contributing to AAAM’s goal of increasing automotive manufacturing in Africa from the current 1.1 million vehicles per year to 3.5 million, or even 5 million, by 2035.
