About

Martina Klaus joined The Volvo Group, Sweden’s multinational manufacturer, in 2005 as part of the Volvo Aero division. In 2010 she moved to Shanghai for a 12 month Asian truck project for the Group, which enabled Klaus to gain a global perspective of the company’s business operations. Until a restructure in January 2012, Klaus was general counsel for the purchasing division. The restructure led to her current position as general counsel for the newly formed Volvo Trucks division, responsible for the handling of legal issues that arise from manufacturing of Trucks’ cab and vehicles, engines and transmissions and logistics operations. With 50 plants and 81 distribution centres worldwide, Klaus, leads and coordinates work to ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulation, mitigating risks in business operations. Building the legal team for Volvo Trucks, Klaus now heads a team of 12, based in Sweden, France, China and the US. She also works with the global network of Volvo’s legal counsels to give constant and consistent support across the Group. Klaus was integral in supporting the division during a strategic operational period, between 2012 and 2015, designed to optimise industrial and logistical footprint. As a result the company’s cost base was substantially reduced involving closing downs, divestments and other related actions. Klaus thrives within the global scope of her role. Giving an insight into her job, she says that she enjoys ‘having a joint venture working meeting in the morning with Asia, a European compliance embedding meeting over lunch and a divestment meeting with the Americas during the afternoon’. In addition Klaus also relishes the challenge posed to Volvo Trucks with the growing trend of increasing levels of trade barriers throughout the world. As she says, ‘the challenge is to make sure we optimise our industrial and sourcing footprint and are still being compliant and taking advantage of the business opportunities offered when navigating through the trade barriers’.