Jim Rowan bills himself as the "new guy in town." The 57-year-old Scotsman was named CEO of Volvo on March 21, replacing Sweden's Hakan Samuelsson. In mid-May, he was in France, one of the stops on his first major tour of the Swedish manufacturer's global teams, after the United States and the United Kingdom. Le Monde met this "boss 2.0," who is expected to embody a major turning point for Volvo and for the automotive industry.
Mr. Rowan may claim to be a car lover, but he's a novice in the industry. He came from Ember Technologies, a company specializing in connected objects, was CEO of Dyson, and spent some time at one of cell phone's pioneers, BlackBerry. His lack of specific expertise is no coincidence. Mr. Rowan comes with a clear roadmap: to radically transform the Swedish premium manufacturer.
"The automotive industry is moving quickly and strongly toward connectivity and electrification," said the Scotsman. "But the big change, the profound change, is the move to a new kind of organization – a global system, based on software, semiconductors and the computing power of the vehicle's software architecture."
The brand's all-electric strategy
"In high tech, in the places I come from, like BlackBerry or Dyson, this system is widely used and the software that underpins this organization is owned by the companies," he continued. "The automotive industry is going to have to re-insource its software production; it's going to have to do remote updates, speed up the rate of product renewal. I bring this skill, as I also bring my knowledge of e-commerce and my ability to manage large IT teams."
The new boss wants to be Volvo's "Mr. Revolution," in charge of carrying out the brand's all-electric strategy, since it has promised not to put a single combustion engine in its cars from 2030 on. This plan, launched at the initiative of Geely (China's leading carmaker), its reference shareholder, inspired the plan to split electric and combustion engines which Renault wants to implement in the coming months.
This strategy has been built in several stages. Firstly, in the summer of 2021, all of the Swedish company's thermal and hybrid motorization activities were split off and separated in a joint venture between Volvo and Geely, called "Aurobay". Then, in the autumn, with an initial stock launch for the company Volvo Cars. Finally, with the future listing of Polestar, its brand of modern, sporty electrified cars (which cannot be sold in France because, according to the courts, its logo is too similar to that Citroën's), while the Volvo brand will embody safety, reliability and Scandinavian chic.
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