The mastermind behind Europe’s hottest new car brand is leaving Volkswagen in a shock departure

• Wayne Griffiths, CEO of Volkswagen's Spanish subsidiary SEAT and father of the Cupra brand, stepped down at his own request "to pursue new challenges." Just three weeks earlier, he told reporters his current post was a dream job and hoped to be around to see through the launch of Cupra in the United States. Could a Stellantis post beckon?

Three weeks ago, Wayne Griffiths was greedily looking forward to the June opening of Cupra’s flagship presence in the U.K. 

The father of the Spanish performance-car brand that styles itself as a rebel didn’t choose London but Manchester, the world’s first industrial city, where the CEO of Cupra and the broader SEAT group also grew up.

“You can imagine I’m really looking forward to going home,” Griffiths told journalists at his company’s annual press conference. “Like Cupra, it’s in my DNA.”

That won’t happen anymore—at least not as the head of SEAT (pronounced SAY-aht). Effective Monday, he abruptly stepped down at his own request “to pursue new challenges.” The news came as a shock after reporting record results despite a stagnant European car market in 2024, where it generates 90% of its total revenue.

In fact, Griffiths just said last month he had zero ambition to leave after taking over the CEO role in late 2020. And why should he? On track this year to hit 1 million cumulative vehicles sold since its 2018 founding as a stand-alone brand, Cupra was his baby. 

Griffiths was preparing the September unveiling of the Raval small EV, based off its Urban Rebel concept, and even exploring a deal to bring Cupra to the U.S. market, with local retailer Penske Automotive, by the end of the decade.

“I’ve always said this company is my destiny, I’m all in until the end of my career,” Griffiths told reporters at the event, saying he hoped to be around for the U.S. launch of Cupra in some years' time. “For me personally, this, as I say, is a dream job. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I don’t have any other plans.”

Created Cupra from a blank sheet of paper

Griffiths could only be described as a marketing genius when he created Cupra in 2018. Unlike Europe’s other popular brands that often boast the substance and name recognition only a century of automotive history and motorsport racing can provide, Cupra is a brand effectively cooked up by committee in a corporate boardroom. 

And yet, thanks to Griffiths’ nose for strategy, positioning, and design, he was able to outgrow other upstart premium peers like Hyundai’s Genesis, Polestar of Sweden, France’s DS, and even more established players like BMW’s Mini.

In the process, he delivered consolidated turnover of €14.5 billion ($15.7 billion) and operating profit of €633 million last year. Both are record highs for SEAT, long a problem child for parent Volkswagen Group, puking up red ink year after year amid repeated rumors of a possible shutdown. More than half of its total 2024 revenue came from Cupra alone, according to its finance chief. 

Key to that success was the turnaround a decade ago by Jürgen Stackmann, who pushed an ambitious strategy through Volkswagen to expand into SUVs for the first time in 2016 with the Ateca. But it was Griffiths that has taken a restructured SEAT and turned it into a solid profit contributor led by Cupra.

In a LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Griffiths shed no light on what his next move is after 37 years at the Volkswagen Group—or whether in fact he already had a new assignment lined up. Stellantis chairman and Fiat heir John Elkann is currently on the lookout for a new CEO, for example. 

“As my hero David Bowie said, ‘I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise you it won’t be boring,’” wrote the Mancunian at heart.

A spokesman for Stellantis declined to comment to Fortune, reaffirming the company planned to announce a CEO before the end of the current second quarter. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com