Who is Daimler's CEO Dieter Zetsche?

More famous for his moustache and shunning ties than nearly anything else, Dieter Zetsche has run one of Germany's biggest companies for 13-plus years. He is one of a handful of German bosses who is recognizable to the general public. Incidentally, his rein coincides nearly perfectly with that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, though she is staying in office a bit longer.

Despite the fact that he joined the car company in 1976, it wasn't until he moved to Detroit to take over the helm of the Chrysler division of the combined DaimlerChrysler that the world really took notice. Though marketed as a 1998 merger, it was in reality a takeover that never took off. Zetsche ran the division from 2000-2005 before returning to Germany. Daimler later dumped the group in 2007.

One of the stranger episodes in Zetsche's career came to life during his time in the US. It was there that he morphed from Dieter Zetsche into Dr. Z, the friendly CEO who would answer all and any questions — also as a cartoon. The American and Canadian ad campaign tanked and was quickly canceled but lives on in the minds of everyone who ever saw it. Pity is not many knew he was actually the boss.

After his difficult time at Chrysler, Zetsche headed back to company headquarters in Stuttgart where he took over the position of chairman of what is now called Daimler AG on January 1, 2006. The company makes Mercedes-Benz cars, trucks and buses and today employs around 290,000 worldwide. It has long been a trendsetter of high-end cars with an strong aspirational pull.

In addition to his higher duties, Zetsche also ran the Mercedes car division himself. There he was able to introduce an entirely new design for the brand. These efforts were a great success and impressed buyers around the globe. As an engineer, he also gave a lot of attention to how the cars ran and improved quality and customer satisfaction. He implemented cuts to make the company sleeker.

One thing Zetsche was not able to do was to save the high-end Maybach division. Revived in 2002, the brand was supposed to be the ultimate in driving luxury. In the end, only around 3,000 sold and the last one was made in December 2012. Today Mercedes makes its own Maybach-branded car, but it is just a beefed-up S-Class. Perhaps that was the problem all along: most Maybachs looked like an S-Class.

Critics complain that the company is not ready for the future and came too late to the electric and autonomous driving campaign. The company was slow to invest in expensive, unproven technologies. But they did get on board with car sharing early by starting car2go in 2008. Today it claims to be the world's largest car-sharing firm with 2.5 million members. But more sharing means less buying.

After the diesel scandal broke in 2015, it seemed that Volkswagen acted alone. But as investigations widened, Daimler was also accused of installing software to fool emissions tests and have since recalled around 700,000 diesels in Europe for software updates. The bosses of the main companies were also called to Berlin to explain the situation to the government. Jail time or other punishments? No.

Over the years the company's stock has had its ups and downs. For 2018 the company reported a 28 percent fall in net profits and cut its stock dividend. It was a disappointing result after several good years. Blaming the US-China trade dispute, the possibility of American tariffs, falling interest in diesels and a general global slowdown, the company says it is nonetheless ready for the future.

As Zetsche hands over his keys to his Swedish replacement, Ola Kaellenius, at the annual shareholder meeting, the company is facing a tough future. Yet Dr. Z's future is assured. He will get retirement pay of €4,250 ($4815) — a day — and has all but been promised the position of chairman of Daimler's supervisory board in 2021 when the position becomes free. Nice work if you can get it.