In a few weeks' time at the Volkswagen shareholders annual meeting, Ferdinand Piech will be re-elected to the chairmanship of the Group's supervisory board. That was expected. However, at the next supervisory board meeting the 74 year old auto industrialist veteran will be accompanied by his wife Ursula (55), since she will be elected as a Supervisory Board member herself. Mrs. Piech is a kindergarten teacher by profession, according to Volkswagen, with business qualifications as well.

She will be the fifth member of the Porsche-Piech clan to sit on the Volkswagen Supervisory Board, which has 20 members. The clan is in control of Europe's largest automaker since the resolution of Porsche's attempt to takeover Volkswagen collapsed, dragging the family company into heavy losses and almost bankruptcy. However their prize for that awful business decision was taking control of Volkswagen while merging Porsche and a few of their other businesses into the group. Just last year Volkswagen Group's pre-tax profit was $14.8 billion, a jump of 59 percent compared to 2010.

All told, the Volkswagen Group consists of Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, SEAT, Skoda, Porsche, VW passenger and commercial cars, and a few other smaller brands. More recently, Piech, the grandson of Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche, showed interest in purchasing Alfa Romeo. While that's not happening at this point, nothing should be ruled out in the future. Now his wife can help make those major business decisions.