With effect from October 1st, Austria-born Herbert Steiner (37) has been appointed new head of Gearbox del Prat, a SEAT Group company devoted to the manufacture of gearboxes.

An industrial engineer by training, Steiner steps into the shoes of Vicente Ricós, who will be taking on new responsibilities elsewhere in SEAT, S.A.

Herbert Steiner has spent almost his entire career within the Volkswagen Group. Starting in 1998, after a stay at Volkswagen do Brasil, as Production Controller in Audi AG in Germany, in 2000 he took up responsibility as Product Manager in Purchases, in charge of the Audi A3 and Audi TT models. In 2002 he was appointed assistant to the Purchases VP for the same brand.

Two years later he was appointed manager for Purchase Strategy and Systems at Audi AG. In 2006 he took up responsibility for management of the Secretariat General at SEAT S.A., a post he has occupied to the present.

Gearbox del Prat, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SEAT, is this year celebrating the 20th anniversary of its creation. At its El Prat de Llobregat production centre in Barcelona, it manufactures gearboxes for SEAT, Audi and Skoda. Together with Kassel (Germany), Córdoba (Argentina), Shanghai (China) and Mlada Boleslav (Czech Republic), it is one of the five world-wide Volkswagen Group transmission systems production centres.