Siemens Scraps "Chief" Job Titles — Thousands of Managers Facing Uncertainty

German industrial giant Siemens will abolish most management positions carrying the "Chief" prefix starting October 1. CEO Roland Busch announced the move in a message to employees, saying the company had accumulated far too many such titles over time, diluting their value.

According to Busch, more than 300 people currently hold CEO or CFO titles across the organization — not just top executives, but also heads of regional units and individual divisions. "We're cutting the number of C-suite positions, not the importance of leadership," he stressed.

A Sweeping Corporate Overhaul

Thousands of Siemens employees still don't know what their new roles will look like. Many managers will have to compete for their positions, and some risk losing their current authority and influence altogether. According to the German business paper Handelsblatt, which cites internal sources, Busch described the shake-up as part of "a massive cultural transformation — possibly the biggest in Siemens' history" — one aimed at turning the company into a single, unified technology organization.

The new model draws inspiration from leading tech firms: individual divisions are expected to collaborate more closely so innovations can be rolled out faster in practice. Instead of desk-bound titles like "Regional CEO," managers will be given designations such as "Managing Director" or "Head of…", with leaders expected to engage more directly with customers.

A Reform Launched at the Peak of Success

Tellingly, Siemens isn't undertaking this restructuring under crisis pressure, unlike, say, Volkswagen — it's doing so during a period of growth. The company's digital services division has already outperformed its own forecasts: sales are up 17% since the start of the year, beating the 15% target, while margins keep improving too.

Siemens AG is one of the world's oldest industrial conglomerates, founded in Berlin in 1847, with a second headquarters in Munich. Today the company employs more than 300,000 people worldwide, including a sizeable workforce in Czechia. Its main focus is industrial digitalization and the development of smart systems for infrastructure and power transmission.

Healthcare and Energy Go Their Own Way

Alongside the restructuring, Siemens continues to spin off individual business lines into independent companies. Part of its generator and motor shaft production — including former Siemens plants in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, Mohelnice, and Drásov — was already transferred to Innomotics.

Now the parent group plans to fully separate its Healthineers subsidiary, which specializes in medical technology. Healthineers is already listed on the stock exchange independently, though Siemens still holds a controlling stake, which it intends to relinquish in the coming months. The conglomerate had earlier spun off its energy division, which makes turbines and compressors — it has operated independently as Siemens Energy since 2020 and recently announced it will rebrand as Omterra, since its temporary license to use the Siemens name is expiring.

Meanwhile, the Siemens Mobility division, which manufactures trains, metro systems and signaling equipment, will remain part of the group as one of its key growth drivers. Over the past year alone, the division has landed contracts worth billions of euros: Italian rail operator Italo ordered 26 high-speed trains, with an option for 14 more to enter the German market; Romania ordered 12 hydrogen-powered regional trains; and this spring Siemens began deliveries under the largest contract in its history — Indian Railways is purchasing roughly 1,200 freight locomotives from the company.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz