Of all the recent CEO swaps, Volvo dropping Jim Rowan in favour of his predecessor Håkan Samuelsson provoked the most puzzled response among car industry watchers.
“It’s the biggest surprise of all the changes,” said former Nissan and Aston Martin senior executive Andy Palmer. “In my mind, he was doing great.”
Volvo hasn’t officially confirmed the reason for Rowan’s departure, but two separate sources have confirmed to Autocar that he was pushed out. “It was quick and a surprise,” said another.
The case for replacing Rowan was, on the face of it, thin. The former Dyson CEO has overseen one of the most successful periods in Volvo’s history.
Last year, the Geely-owned Swedish company posted a record breaking profit of SEK 27 billion (£2.1bn) on a decent margin of 6.8%. Sales were also at a record high, at 763,389, up 8% on the year before.
Volvo has successfully navigated the push into electric cars, with EVs accounting for almost a quarter of its sales last year and the electrified share including plug-in hybrids hitting 46%.
Rowan highlighted these figures during the company’s annual results call in February to make the point that it's possible to execute electrification while continuing to make money.
Since joining Volvo in 2022, Rowan plugged away at the transformation his consumer electronics background prepped him for: deliver the digital overhaul demanded by both shareholders and consumers in Volvo’s single largest market of China. He was also convinced by the need to continue the shift to electrification started by Samuelsson.
“I’m flabbergasted sometimes by a lot of our competitors who still want to push for internal combustion engines,” Rowan told Autocar in a recent interview. The money might be good now, but not making the switch early enough is an extinction-level mistake, he said.
Volvo has been forced to roll back its all-EV plan for 2030 on the back of slowing demand in the US, its second largest single market, but is persisting with the SPA3 EV platform that will spawn an electric version of its global best-seller, the XC60 SUV, in 2026.
However, Rowan acknowledged on that February call that he was staring down the barrel of a much tougher 12 months. “2025 will be a very challenging year for the industry as a whole and also for Volvo Cars,” he said.
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