Volvo Cars appoints Carla De Geyseleer as chief financial officer
Volvo Cars appoints Carla De Geyseleer as chief financial officer
Volvo Cars has appointed Carla De Geyseleer as its new chief financial officer (CFO), succeeding Hans Oscarsson who will leave the company as of August 1 for a new assignment within the Geely Group.
Ms De Geyseleer (51) is a Belgian national and joins Volvo Cars from Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), a Swiss-based publicly listed company specialised in testing, inspection and certification services, where she has been group CFO since 2014. She will take up her position with Volvo Cars as of October 1.
“I am very pleased to welcome Carla to Volvo Cars,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive. “She brings a wealth of financial experience from a range of different industries and I am confident that she will prove to be a great addition to our executive team. I would also like to thank Hans for his almost 30 years of service to Volvo Cars and wish him all the best in his next assignment.”
Prior to her role at SGS, Ms De Geyseleer was CFO at telecom firm Vodafone Libertel in the Netherlands and worked for 15 years at the logistics company DHL Express where she held growing responsibilities in various operational and corporate positions in multiple countries. Initially she started her career as an auditor with accountancy firm EY Belgium.
She holds an executive MBA from the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland and a Master’s degree in Economic & Financial Sciences from the Economische Hoge School Sint Aloysius (EHSAL) in Brussels, Belgium.
Commenting on her appointment, Ms De Geyseleer said: “I look forward to joining this successful company to create value through progressing the transformation, steering towards sustainable and profitable growth and driving engagement within the company.”
Hans Oscarsson will from August 1 take up a new position as chief executive officer of Geely Sweden Holding AB, the company responsible for the Geely Group’s investments in the Nordic region. He leaves Volvo Cars after 29 years of service, first joining the company in 1990. He was appointed CFO in 2013.
To bridge the period until Ms De Geyseleer’s arrival at Volvo Cars, the company has appointed Per Ansgar, vice president group reporting and controlling, as interim head of the Finance department to oversee the day-to-day operations.
-------------------------------
Volvo Car Group in 2018
For the 2018 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 14,185 MSEK (14,061 MSEK in 2017). Revenue over the period amounted to 252,653 MSEK (208,646 MSEK). For the full year 2018, global sales reached a record 642,253 (571,577) cars, an increase of 12.4 per cent versus 2017. The results underline the comprehensive transformation of Volvo Cars’ finances and operations in recent years, positioning the company for its next growth phase.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo Cars was founded in 1927. Today, it is one of the most well-known and respected premium car brands in the world with sales of 642,253 cars in 2018 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding of China since 2010.
In 2018, Volvo Cars employed on average approximately 43,000 (39,500) full-time employees. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (US), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).
Under its new company purpose, Volvo Cars aims to provide customers with the Freedom to Move in a personal, sustainable and safe way. This purpose is reflected into a number of business ambitions: by the middle of next decade it aims for half of its global sales to be fully electric cars and to offer half of all cars to customers via its subscription service. By then, it also expects one-third of its cars sold to be autonomous.