Siemens
The sweetness of Siemens Mobility Sambit Banerjee, MD of the multinational company’s rolling stock and customer services business in the UK, on his long innings and a corker of a future
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t does not take long into a conversation with cricket enthusiast Sambit Banerjee, who took over as Managing Director of Siemens Mobility in the UK in November 2019, before a sporting analogy is used to frame his long career with the engineering giant. “The more you bat,” he said, “the more you enjoy the sound of the ball hitting the bat, that sweetness. Working at Siemens is very much like that. It feels good to have been here for so long and the more time I am here the better I feel. It’s a great company to work for, a fair company, and one that has opened up opportunities for me. “I am enjoying my job more than ever before and I look at work differently now. Now it is time for me to give a lot back to this organisation and its people. If I can be of any help to colleagues in work areas, in coaching, guidance and mentoring, I am more than happy to do so and share the experience that I have acquired on this journey with them.” Beginnings Sambit’s journey commenced when the chartered accountant joined Siemens India at Kolkata in 1992. A brief intermission in 2001 saw him work for The Times of India group as Vice President of Finance, then Chief Financial Officer of a joint venture between The Times of India and BBC Publications, before a return to Siemens in 2005. He has enjoyed two spells in Munich for the business and, in 2006, moved to the UK, with responsibility for Siemens’ IT business for North West Europe and, after that, into the logistics and airports business. His move into rail came in 2013, when he joined Siemens Mobility as Finance Director. Having travelled the globe, his sights are now firmly fixed on an inland port town in the East Riding of Yorkshire – Goole. Siemens Mobility’s ambitious plans will see a new £200m train manufacturing plant located there to manufacture and commission new generation trains, which is set to create up to 700 skilled jobs at its peak, plus another 250 jobs in construction. The plant is due to open in 2023. Sambit is keen to stress that Siemens is not in the business of merely opening factories. Rather, it creates technology centres and technology parks and, as a result of these ‘localisation’ projects, transforms communities. 8 | December 2020
railbusinessdaily.com
