Industry People
M
ichael May clearly knew something the rest of the industry didn’t, and that was that his new job would see a different reporting structure and different responsibilities to his predecessors at Iveco. It came as part of an offer from the global boss of Iveco, Gerrit Marx, a German ex Daimler and Bain Capital executive, who became president of Iveco commercial and specialty vehicles in January 2019. Marx came into his role on the back of a restructure for CNHI (Case New Holland Industrial), the parent company of Iveco. To put it crudely, rather than being overseen and ruled by the ‘tractor salesmen’ who formerly ran the business, Marx now oversees the commercial vehicle
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business and rather than being a division of the ‘ag machine’ operation in Australia May reports to Marx at Iveco HQ in Italy and is also responsible for not just Australia but SE Asia and the Pacific. Asked directly why he made the move Michael May was straight and to the point “It definitely was a challenge that interested me, I was approached out of Italy, and it was a different mindset, than leadership within Iveco in the last few years,” said May. “If you take a look at the top we’ve got Gerrit Marx as our new CEO, and that signalled a change from what I can tell, I’ve been here nine months now and it’s clear that the company really wants to forge a new direction,” he added. “So for me, it was really about a potential
to turn this business back to what it once was in our industry. Iveco and the history of the company goes a long way back and has some really good legacy reputation and for me, I’m attracted to that,” said May. May said he sees the potential there, and added that the company is talking in an innovative and an entrepreneurial way at the top, and that’s what attracted him to the role. He is at pains to point out that the spin off of Iveco from CNHI, means the corporate structure for his predecessors was different to the one he now works within. “They (his predecessors) were really managing the brand and the sales application, and Gerrit Marx wanted somebody as the head of Iveco for the region to oversee all of the business,
