Ferdinand Karl Piëch (b. 1937 - 2019) is an Austrian businessman, most notable for his work as the chairman of the executive board of the Volkswagen group between 1993 - 2002 & chairman of the supervisory board of Volkswagen Group in 2002 2015.

Piëch is a descendant of the Porsche family. Born to parents; Louise Piëch & Anton Piëch, Ferdinand's maternal grandfather was Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of Porsche A.G. & the man behind the Volkswagen Beetle.

Much like most of the Porsche descendants, Piëch landed a position in management at Porsche, where he directed such major creations as the Carrera RS 2.7 & 917 amongst many others. Piëch was known for his interest in motorsports, with an attitude to throw absolutely everything he physically could at every project he was known to take on.

Due to ongoing family disputes though, Piëch was let go from Porsche management, from there he moved onto engineering and consultancy with Mercedes-Benz, focusing largely on the creation of diesel power plants.

Due to his success Piëch was brought back through Audi in the 1980's where he was in charge of making Audi relevant, as the company had no advantage over the industry in this period, and a damaged reputation in the North American market due to mass incidents.

Under his time with the Volkswagen group, Piëch was notoriously known for his demanding requests and directions, ultimately leading to the direction of some of the greatest contemporary era cars, his demands for a VW produced 1000 hp, 407 km/h supercar, ultimately culminating in the 2000's boundary pushing Bugatti Veyron, debatably, the grandfather of the contemporary Super & Hypercar era.

Piëch, a contemporary times automotive leader, is one of the most successful managers in pioneering production & economies of scale to to create some of the highest quality vehicles as a result of trickle down engineering, badge marketing & sharing platforms, a trend which was very common across the Volkswagen Auto Group throughout it's 1990's - 2010's success, with a motto of engineer for the bleeding edge of technology, and let the effects of this trickle down into the lower end (this can still be seen today post Piëch's passing in VW's line up, Touareg, Q7, Bentayga, Cayenne & Urus all sharing modified versions of the one vehicle platform)

The Porsche 906, 917, Audi Quattro, R8, VW XL1, Phaeton, Bentley Continental & Bugatti Veyron amongst others, all have Piëch to thank for their existence.