BERLIN (Reuters) -- Volkswagen Group's supervisory board will pick Matthias Mueller, the head of sports-car maker Porsche, as its next CEO to succeed Martin Winterkorn, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Mueller, the VW group's former head product strategist, has majority support on the 20-member supervisory panel that meets on Friday, the source said.
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that Mueller will get the job.
Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday after almost nine years at the helm of Europe's biggest carmaker after VW was found manipulating emissions equipment in the U.S.
Mueller, 62, has led Porsche since 2010. He is backed by members of the Porsche-Piech family that controls a majority stake in Volkswagen.
"He is a good choice even though he may be seen as a transitionary CEO until another internal candidate such as VW brand CEO Diess has earned their stripes," said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst at Evercore ISI investment banking advisory firm.
He said Mueller's priority would be to renew VW's leadership, restructure costs and turn VW into a "performance-driven company where management was more accountable."
Mueller started at Audi as a toolmaking apprentice in the early 1970s, and his focus in recent years has been away from the VW and Audi brands named in the diesel affair.
In addition, sources told Reuters that Volkswagen will dismiss its U.S. chief executive, Michael Horn, on Friday and create a special position for the United States on its management board.
Winfried Vahland, head of VW's Czech division, Skoda, is the top candidate to take charge of VW's U.S. operations, two sources said. Horn’s impending dismissal was told to Reuters by a source familiar with the matter earlier today.
A VW of America spokeswoman declined to comment, calling reports of Horn’s pending dismissal “speculation."
Possible successors to Winterkorn also included Herbert Diess, a former BMW executive who took over the newly created post of VW brand chief this year, a person familiar with the matter said.
The new CEO will take charge as Volkswagen seeks to regain the trust of consumers and rebuild a brand tarnished by scandal. The company’s admission that millions of its “clean diesel” cars have software intended to defeat emissions tests has wiped nearly 20 billion euros ($22.4 billion) off its market capitalization since last Friday.
Winterkorn’s departure “was necessary for the company, for the workers, for the region, for Germany’s car industry, but it’s only a first step,” said Guenter Lach, a Christian Democrat lawmaker who worked at VW for four decades and represents voters from the automaker’s home base of Wolfsburg.