Martin Lundstedt

Martin Lundstedt
Born	1967
Nationality	Swedish
Education	Master of Science, Chalmers University of Technology (1992)
Occupation	Business executive
Company	AB Volvo
Title	President and Chief Executive Officer

Martin Lundstedt (born 1967) is a Swedish business executive who has been President and Chief Executive Officer of the Volvo Group, the Gothenburg-based maker of trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines, since October 22, 2015. Before joining the group he spent 23 years at its Swedish rival Scania, which he joined as a trainee in 1992 and led as President and CEO from September 2012 until 2015.

Lundstedt trained as an engineer at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg and worked his way through Scania's engine production, research and development, product marketing and truck operations, including postings in France and South America. He became head of Scania's truck business in 2006 and of its franchise and factory sales in 2007, before succeeding Leif Östling as chief executive when Östling joined the board of management of Volkswagen AG.

The board of AB Volvo named Lundstedt to replace Olof Persson in April 2015; a six-month non-compete period under his Scania contract delayed his start until October of that year. Under Lundstedt the group reorganised its truck business around its individual brands in 2016, sold UD Trucks to Isuzu as part of a long-term alliance, and formed a series of joint ventures with competitors, among them the fuel-cell company cellcentric and the software company Coretura with Daimler Truck, and the charging network Milence with Daimler Truck and the Traton Group. The company's own figures show net sales rising from SEK 312.5 billion in 2015 to a peak of SEK 552.8 billion in 2023, before easing to SEK 479.2 billion in 2025.

Lundstedt also sits on the board of AB Volvo, and outside the group he has served on the boards of Autoliv and Atlas Copco, on the commercial vehicle board of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), and as a member of the European Round Table for Industry and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. As of October 2026 he remains chief executive; he signed the group's third-quarter 2026 report on October 23, 2026.

Early life and education

Lundstedt was born in 1967 and grew up in Mariestad, a town in western Sweden. He studied at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, graduating in 1992 as a civil engineer (civilingenjör) in the industrial engineering and management programme, the degree that English-language sources describe as a Master of Science in industrial engineering and management. The Chalmers alumni association lists him with the class designation I92.

His years in Gothenburg later became part of his explanation for accepting the post in Gothenburg. Speaking to Göteborgs-Posten on his first day at the company, Lundstedt said that he had a Gothenburg connection, having studied at Chalmers and having many friends living in the city.

Career

Scania, 1992 to 2015

Engine production and France

Lundstedt joined Scania directly after graduating, entering the company as a trainee in 1992. According to the biography Scania published while he was its chief executive, he began in engine production as a production engineer and then worked as a manager in engine production and in engine research and development. In 2001 he became managing director of Scania Production Angers, the company's industrial operation in Angers, France, a post he held until 2005. The Chalmers alumni association also records that he headed Scania operations in South America, and the trade press reported in 2015 that he had held executive positions in Sweden, Brazil and France.

Product marketing, trucks and sales

Lundstedt returned to Sweden in 2005 to become head of product marketing. A year later he was appointed senior vice president and head of trucks, and in 2007 he was named executive vice president and head of franchise and factory sales, the role he held when he was chosen to lead the company.

President and CEO of Scania

In June 2012 the board of Scania appointed Lundstedt President and CEO of Scania AB with effect from September 1, 2012. He succeeded Leif Östling, who had been appointed to the board of management of Volkswagen AG, Scania's controlling shareholder. The appointment came as part of a wider reshuffle of the Scania executive board: Per Hallberg moved from research and development to production and logistics in place of Anders Nielsen, who left to run MAN Truck & Bus; Harald Ludanek joined from Volkswagen to run research and development; and Henrik Henriksson succeeded Lundstedt as head of franchise and factory sales.

Lundstedt led Scania for about three years, a period in which, like MAN, it was owned by Volkswagen. KTH Royal Institute of Technology later credited him with a strong commitment to the strategic partnership between Scania and KTH, which it described as the most extensive of its industrial collaborations, and with helping to create the Integrated Transport Research Lab (ITRL) at KTH, a research and development laboratory for future transport. KTH also said he had driven a large investment by the university in Södertälje, Scania's home town, covering research, education and innovation.

When Lundstedt resigned in April 2015 to move to the rival group, Scania's chairman, Martin Winterkorn, said in a statement that the board respected his decision and thanked him "for his successful efforts to further develop and strengthen Scania's strong market position during his years as president and CEO". Under the terms of his contract with Scania he then spent six months in quarantine, without contact with either his old or his new employer.

Volvo Group, 2015 to present

Appointment

On April 22, 2015, the board of AB Volvo announced that Lundstedt, then aged 47, would become the group's President and CEO in October, replacing Olof Persson, who left with immediate effect after almost four years in the role. Chief financial officer Jan Gurander served as acting chief executive in the interim. The chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, said that after three years of product renewal, internal efficiency and restructuring, the group was "gradually entering a new phase with an intensified focus on growth and increased profitability", and described Lundstedt as having "25 years of experience in development, production and sales within the commercial vehicle industry". Svanberg added: "He is also known for his winning leadership style." Heavy Duty Trucking noted that the move took an executive from the group's traditional Scandinavian rival.

Göteborgs-Posten reported that the share price jumped when the appointment was announced, and that the activist shareholder Christer Gardell of Cevian Capital had said he expected Lundstedt to make the company the world's best and most profitable truck maker. Asked whether he could achieve that, Lundstedt replied that it was impossible to answer with a categorical yes, but that nobody takes a job they do not believe they can do well, and that very hard work lay ahead.

First day

Lundstedt took office on October 22, 2015. Instead of a corporate setting, he held his first press meeting on the workshop floor of the largest Volvo Truck Center in Sweden, at Bäckebol outside Gothenburg, where reporters watched him discuss diesel injectors with a truck technician who had almost 30 years at the plant. Lundstedt told Göteborgs-Posten that he had spent the quarantine learning about the parts of the group that he knew least, including its North American business and the product programmes of its various brands, and that the first task was to get to know the organisation together with management and employees. Heavy Duty Trucking observed at the time that the group's portfolio of brands, which then included Volvo, Mack, Renault and UD trucks, a joint venture with Dongfeng in China, a stake in Eicher Motors of India, several construction equipment and bus brands and Volvo Penta, might need to be reviewed and refined.

Brand-based organisation and growth, 2016 to 2019

In 2016 Lundstedt set what he called "a new direction for the Group" and introduced a brand-based organisation for the truck business, in which each truck brand was made responsible for its own commercial development and profitability. Writing in the 2018 annual report, he said the strategy had been successful and that the group would continue to push decentralisation, so that "those closest to the customer should be empowered to make the decisions and also be accountable for the result".

In 2018 the group's net sales rose by 17 percent to SEK 391 billion and adjusted operating income reached SEK 40.7 billion; Lundstedt called it "a record year for the Volvo Group", with trucks, construction equipment, Volvo Penta and financial services all reporting their highest adjusted operating income to that point. In the same year the group changed its senior team: in June, deputy CEO Jan Gurander was given the task of leading strategic and operational activities together with Lundstedt, and Jan Ytterberg, a former Scania executive who had been chief financial officer of Husqvarna Group, was appointed CFO. In December 2018 Roger Alm was named President of Volvo Trucks and Diana Niu head of group human resources, both from January 1, 2019.

During 2018 the group also showed its first all-electric trucks, announced plans to sell electric medium-duty trucks from Volvo Trucks and Renault Trucks in Europe from 2019, presented the autonomous electric transport concept Vera, and signed its first commercial autonomous transport agreement, with the Norwegian limestone producer Brønnøy Kalk. In his letter to shareholders Lundstedt wrote that customers now often responded to new connected, electric and automated solutions by asking "Great! When can we get it?"

Isuzu alliance and the pandemic years, 2019 to 2021

On December 18, 2019, the group and Isuzu Motors signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to form a strategic alliance in commercial vehicles, under which the whole of UD Trucks would be transferred to Isuzu. Final agreements followed on October 30, 2020, and the transaction closed on April 1, 2021. The alliance provided for a Joint Alliance Office in Japan and Sweden overseen by an Alliance Board that included the Isuzu president and the group's chief executive.

The year 2021 brought supply chain disruption alongside strong demand. Lundstedt reported that the truck business delivered 198,000 vehicles excluding UD Trucks, 31 percent more than in 2020, and that the group's adjusted operating income rose to SEK 41 billion. In 2021 the company distributed SEK 50 billion, including the proceeds of the UD Trucks sale. In the same year the group's climate targets, which Lundstedt described as consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, were validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, and it began selling heavy-duty electric trucks in Europe.

Russia, peak earnings and electrification, 2022 to 2024

Net sales rose by 29 percent in 2022 to SEK 473.5 billion. Reported operating income that year was reduced by a SEK 4,125 million provision for assets related to Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, and by SEK 630 million in costs for claims arising from the European Commission's 2016 antitrust decision. In 2023 net sales reached SEK 552.8 billion and operating income SEK 66.8 billion, the highest figures of Lundstedt's tenure to date.

From 2023 the group bought and sold several businesses as part of what its reports call portfolio management. It acquired the battery business of the US electric bus and battery maker Proterra, completed in February 2024, and divested the French defence vehicle maker Arquus to John Cockerill Defense in July 2024. It also formed joint ventures with Renault Group and CMA CGM (Flexis, for electric vans) and with Westport Fuel Systems (Cespira, for high-pressure direct injection fuel systems).

Slower electrification and portfolio changes, 2025 to 2026

In 2025 net sales fell to SEK 479.2 billion and operating income to SEK 48.5 billion. In his letter for that year Lundstedt wrote that the societal transformation towards zero-emission transport was "slower than previously anticipated", partly because charging infrastructure and demand stimulus had not been put in place, adding: "We regret this. It is time for policymakers, state leaders and other stakeholders to also take further action." The group adjusted its battery-electric business accordingly, and reported operating income for 2025 was reduced by SEK 4.5 billion for compensation over lower battery volume commitments and impairment of some battery-electric assets. Lundstedt said the group's ambition of net-zero emissions by 2040 remained.

Also in 2025, Volvo Construction Equipment sold its 70 percent stake in the Chinese machinery maker SDLG for SEK 8 billion and agreed to buy the dealer group Swecon from Lantmännen for SEK 7 billion, a deal that closed in early 2026; the group also began building a truck assembly plant in Monterrey, Mexico, due to come online in 2026. On February 23, 2026, the group announced that Renault Group would buy the group's 45 percent stake in Flexis, with Renault Trucks remaining a partner in the project.

In the third quarter of 2026 the group reported net sales of SEK 119.5 billion, up from SEK 110.7 billion a year earlier, and an adjusted operating margin of 12.3 percent. In his comments on the quarter Lundstedt pointed to the start of the first customer operation of Volvo Autonomous Solutions and Waabi, with an autonomous Volvo VNL carrying freight on the Dallas to Houston corridor in Texas, and to Volvo Trucks' heavy-duty electric range being named International Truck of the Year 2027.

Leadership and management style

When Lundstedt's appointment was announced in 2015, its chairman said he was known for his "winning leadership style", and the KTH citation for its 2016 gold medal said his "encouraging and open" style of leadership had been widely appreciated during his years at Scania. Lundstedt's first public appearance in the new role, on a service workshop floor rather than at headquarters, was described by Heavy Duty Trucking as providing "a hint about new and more realistic times".

His written statements as chief executive repeatedly stress decentralisation and customer contact. In 2018 he wrote that he regularly spent time with customers in different businesses and markets, that decision-making authority should sit with those closest to the customer, and that the organisation still needed to increase speed in decision-making and improve internal collaboration. Lundstedt has also emphasised the workforce: the 2025 annual report quotes him as saying that "succeeding in this industry is all about people, and our people make the difference".

A further feature of his tenure has been cooperation with competitors on expensive new technology. When the Isuzu alliance was signed Lundstedt described it as "an opportunity to share technology investments and also to help each other grow". The group's 2024 annual report lists partnerships with Samsung SDI on batteries, with Daimler Truck on fuel cells through cellcentric, with Aurora on autonomous driving and with Daimler Truck and Traton on heavy-truck charging through Milence.

Major deals and strategic decisions

• Truck brand organisation (2016). Lundstedt replaced the previous functional structure for trucks with an organisation in which each brand was responsible for its own commercial development and profitability.
• WirelessCar (2018 to 2019). In December 2018 the group agreed to sell 75.1 percent of its connected-vehicle subsidiary WirelessCar to the Volkswagen Group for SEK 1.1 billion.
• UD Trucks and the Isuzu alliance (2019 to 2021). The memorandum of December 2019 valued UD Trucks at an enterprise value of JPY 250 billion. The final agreement of October 2020 set the price at JPY 243 billion (about SEK 20 billion), plus an earnout of up to JPY 15 billion depending on UD Trucks' performance in 2021 to 2023. The alliance framework agreement runs for a minimum of 20 years. UD Trucks had 2020 revenue of JPY 261 billion (about SEK 23 billion).
• cellcentric (2021). On March 1, 2021, the group acquired 50 percent of Daimler Truck Fuel Cell GmbH & Co. KG for about EUR 0.6 billion, creating the fuel-cell joint venture cellcentric with Daimler Truck.
• JMC Heavy Duty Vehicle (2021). In August 2021 Volvo Trucks agreed to buy JMC Heavy Duty Vehicle Co., Ltd., with a plant in Taiyuan, China, for about SEK 1.1 billion, to build the brand's heavy-duty trucks locally.
• Milence (2021). In December 2021 the group, Daimler Truck and Traton signed a binding agreement to build and operate a public high-performance charging network for heavy trucks and coaches in Europe; the group holds 33 percent.
• Proterra battery business (2024). The acquisition was completed in February 2024 at a purchase price of SEK 2.2 billion before inventory adjustments and included a battery development centre in California and an assembly plant in Greer, South Carolina.
• Arquus (2024). The defence vehicle maker, with about 1,200 employees in France and around 1 percent of group revenue, was sold to John Cockerill Defense in July 2024.
• Flexis, Cespira and Coretura (2024 to 2026). The group took 45 percent stakes in Flexis and Cespira, and in October 2024 signed a binding agreement with Daimler Truck for a 50/50 software-defined vehicle joint venture, launched as Coretura in June 2025. In February 2026 it agreed to sell its Flexis stake to Renault Group.
• SDLG and Swecon (2025 to 2026). The 70 percent stake in SDLG was sold for SEK 8 billion, completed on September 1, 2025, and Swecon's operations in Sweden, Germany and the Baltic states, with 1,400 employees, were bought for SEK 7 billion.

Financial and market performance

The table below shows figures reported by the company for selected years of Lundstedt's tenure. Figures are as reported for each year and were not all restated for later changes in accounting standards.

Year	Net sales (SEK million)	Operating income (SEK million)
2015	312,515	23,318
2016	301,914	20,826
2018	390,834	34,478
2020	338,446	27,484
2022	473,479	45,712
2023	552,764	66,784
2024	526,816	66,611
2025	479,183	48,506

The group's 2025 annual report states that since 2015 its total shareholder return has averaged 20 percent a year, driven by a 50 percent increase in revenue and a 110 percent rise in operating income. The company's market capitalisation was SEK 247 billion at the end of 2018, SEK 534 billion at the end of 2023, SEK 547 billion at the end of 2024 and SEK 602 billion at the end of 2025. The group had about 99,000 employees in 2025, having described itself as employing almost 100,000 people in 2021.

Remuneration and shareholding

For 2025 Lundstedt received a fixed salary, including vacation pay, of SEK 22,868,264 (SEK 21,713,590 in 2024) and a short-term incentive of SEK 9,125,105, equal to 41 percent of base salary. The long-term incentive programme for 2023 to 2025 paid out SEK 30,687,150, the maximum of 150 percent of base salary, the net amount of which must be invested in Volvo B shares subject to a one-year lock-in. Pension premiums for him were SEK 7,775,028. His contract provides for 12 months' notice from the company, six months' notice from him, and severance equal to 12 months' salary. As of February 25, 2026, he and related parties held 373,762 Series B shares in AB Volvo and 300,000 call options on Series B shares.

Board memberships and outside roles

• AB Volvo: member of the board of directors. The 2025 corporate governance report notes that he is the only board member who is also a member of the group's executive board and group management.
• Autoliv: nominated to the board of the US-listed vehicle safety supplier in March 2021 and elected that year. On February 19, 2026, Autoliv announced that he would not stand for re-election and that his service would end at its 2026 annual meeting, scheduled for May 7, 2026. He said in the announcement that it had been "my honor to serve on the Autoliv Board these past five years".
• Atlas Copco: elected to the board of the Swedish industrial group in 2026; Atlas Copco classifies him as independent of the company and its major shareholders.
• Permobil Holding AB: chairman, according to his official company biography.
• Concentric AB: former board member.
• Industry and business organisations: board member of Industrikraft i Sverige AB, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the Swedish national committee of the International Chamber of Commerce and the commercial vehicle board of ACEA, and a member of the European Round Table for Industry.
• Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA): member since 2013, in Division I, Mechanical Engineering.
• United Nations: former co-chairman of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable Transport.

Controversies

European trucks cartel

On July 19, 2016, during Lundstedt's first year in the post, the European Commission fined MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF a total of EUR 2.93 billion, then a record, for colluding for 14 years, from 1997 to 2011, on truck pricing and on the timing and cost pass-through of emissions technologies. All the companies acknowledged their involvement and settled. Volvo/Renault received a 40 percent leniency reduction and a 10 percent settlement reduction and was fined EUR 670,448,000. The infringement period ended before Lundstedt joined the company. Its 2025 annual report states that it has since faced private damages claims in the region of 3,000 cases in more than 20 countries, and that the litigation can be expected to run for several years.

Scania, where Lundstedt worked throughout the cartel period and which he led from 2012, did not settle. On September 27, 2017, the Commission fined Scania EUR 880,523,000 for its participation in the same cartel after an investigation under the standard procedure. The Commission's announcements concern the companies; neither names Lundstedt or any other individual executive.

Emissions control component

On October 16, 2018, the group disclosed that an emissions control component used in certain markets was degrading more quickly than expected, which could cause engines to exceed limits for nitrogen oxides, although all affected products met the limits at delivery. The company attributed the problem to a materials issue and on January 3, 2019, announced a provision of SEK 7 billion in its fourth-quarter 2018 accounts for the estimated cost of addressing it.

Personal life

Lundstedt grew up in Mariestad and, by his own account in 2015, retained close ties to Gothenburg from his student years. Details of his family have not been widely reported.

Recognition

• 2016: KTH Royal Institute of Technology gold medal for industrial collaboration, for promoting close cooperation between industry and academia, including the Scania and KTH partnership.
• 2017: H.M. The King's Medal, 12th size, on the ribbon of the Order of the Seraphim, presented by King Carl XVI Gustaf at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on February 7, 2017, for outstanding contributions to Swedish business.
• 2018: named Leader of the Year 2018 (Årets ledare), as announced by the group on November 15, 2018.
• 2026: Gustaf Dalén Medal of the Chalmers alumni association, Chalmersska Ingenjörsföreningen, which cited his commitment to long-term investment in sustainable transport and his continuing links with Chalmers.

See also

• Volvo Group
• Scania AB
• Olof Persson
• Leif Östling
• Carl-Henric Svanberg

External links

• Martin Lundstedt, official biography at the Volvo Group
• Volvo Group, official company website