Volvo plans expansion amid slowdown

By Du Juan in Brussels (China Daily) Updated: 2012-09-13 10:46

Practical and humble

As a global CEO of a world Fortune 500 company, 43-year-old Olney is considered young. He said of his success: "Experience is more than age" and that he was "lucky to be in the right spot at the right times".

He has been working in the industry for more than 17 years, with 14 years at Volvo in different departments in many countries and regions.

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What makes a company great are three things: the strategy it pursues, the structure it sets up and the culture it has, Olney said.

Of the three, he believes the culture is the most important.

"Everyone knows the strategy and it can be copied. The structure can be copied too," he said. "What is difficult to copy is the culture. It takes many, many years to build."

It is very important to ensure the culture continues to be built and value is focused on people who make the culture what it is, said Olney, adding that this belief leads him to care for his staff.

"Olney cares about people. It is the biggest part of his personality," Klas Magnusson, Volvo CE's senior vice-president of corporate communications, said when asked to comment on his boss.

He added there was some similarity between Olney and Steve Jobs, the deceased chief of Apple Inc, in that "they both produce machines to change or shape the world".

Olney took the tribute in a humble way, saying Jobs achieved success through his personal efforts while he himself seeks success through 20,000 people in the company.

"He invented a lot of things. I don't see that would be my legacy," he said. "But we are both very practical people."

This is witnessed in his love of traveling to Volvo CE's different factories in many countries to watch the manufacturing process and the final products such as excavators coming off the production line.

"This is what I love about this industry - that, when you finish, you see things.

"If I, somehow, got a job in the insurance industry, it would kill me. I don't think it would motivate me the same way as something that involves steel and lots of people putting things together," he said.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn