Volocopter Announces Leadership Transition, “New Advisory Board Appointments”

Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) start­up, Volo­copter, has recent­ly announced key lead­er­ship changes as it pre­pares to enter a crit­i­cal phase in its devel­op­ment, reports aam-me.ae/. 

With the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its VoloC­i­ty two-seat eVTOL near­ing com­ple­tion and with new fund­ing on the hori­zon, the com­pa­ny is set to seek a new CEO.

Cur­rent CEO, Dirk Hoke, will step down in Feb­ru­ary 2025 after a piv­otal two-year tenure. Dur­ing his time with the com­pa­ny, he has played a cru­cial role in guid­ing Volo­copter through sig­nif­i­cant tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments and finan­cial sta­bil­i­sa­tion.

Under Hoke’s lead­er­ship, Ger­man-based Volo­copter suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ed chal­leng­ing mar­ket con­di­tions and laid the ground­work for the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of its elec­tric eVTOL air­craft. 

Notably, the com­pa­ny com­plet­ed a suc­cess­ful flight test cam­paign in Paris dur­ing the 2024 Olympic Games, bring­ing it clos­er to secur­ing Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty (EASA) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Reflect­ing on his tenure, Hoke com­ment­ed, “In my career, I have nev­er expe­ri­enced such dynam­ic com­pa­ny devel­op­ment in such a short peri­od. I am firm­ly con­vinced that the set­up we have achieved puts us in the best pos­si­ble posi­tion for the suc­cess­ful com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of Volo­copter.” 

He added, “It has been a priv­i­lege to lead this great start-up with its impres­sive employ­ees. Until the end of Feb­ru­ary 2025, I will devote all my ener­gy to achiev­ing EASA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and cre­at­ing an essen­tial build­ing block for Volocopter’s future.”

The Advi­so­ry Board, which accept­ed Hoke’s request to step down, will announce his suc­ces­sor in due course. 

Dr. Dieter Zetsche (Cred­it: Volo­copter)

In addi­tion to Hoke’s depar­ture, Volo­copter has appoint­ed Dr. Dieter Zetsche, for­mer CEO of Daim­ler AG, as the new Chair­man of the Advi­so­ry Board, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly. 

Zetsche is to play a cru­cial role in guid­ing the company’s strate­gic direc­tion as it pre­pares for its next growth phase. He suc­ceeds Ste­fan Klocke, who will con­tin­ue to serve as an active Advi­so­ry Board mem­ber. 

Zetsche remarked, “I am look­ing for­ward to help­ing shape the trans­for­ma­tion of urban mobil­i­ty along­side Volo­copter and con­tribut­ing to ensur­ing that Ger­many remains a lead­ing mobil­i­ty loca­tion in the 21st cen­tu­ry.”

Also, the Ger­man-based com­pa­ny has wel­comed Dr. Zhi­hao Xu, CEO of Geely Tech­nol­o­gy Group, as a new mem­ber of its Advi­so­ry Board. Xu’s appoint­ment strength­ens the Board’s glob­al per­spec­tive and aligns with Volocopter’s inter­na­tion­al growth strat­e­gy. Addi­tion­al­ly, Majid Mufti, CEO of NEOM Invest­ment Fund (NIF), will con­tin­ue to serve as an Advi­so­ry Board mem­ber. 

In Novem­ber 2022, NEOM, the smart and sus­tain­able region­al devel­op­ment in north­west Sau­di Ara­bia, announced a USD175 mil­lion Series E invest­ment in Volo­copter.  

In 2023, the part­ner­ship reached a major mile­stone with the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of a series of air taxi test flights in Sau­di Ara­bia, mark­ing the first time an eVTOL air­craft received spe­cial flight autho­ri­sa­tion and con­duct­ed test flights in the King­dom.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.volocopter.com/en

News Source: aam-me.ae/

(Top image: Dirk Hoke — Cred­it Volo­copter)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sApp, Face­book, Insta­gram, Spo­ti­fy, Apple Pod­casts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.