and the IVECO Daily Hydrogen Fuel Cell prototype
Some 10 years after Italian truck and bus maker Iveco became part of a giant multinational conglomerate, the company has declared independence and come back to where it belongs—on the cutting edge of innovation.
The revolution culminated in January this year, when Iveco Group completed the successful spin-off from former parent CNH Industrial and listed its shares on the Milan Stock Exchange (Borsa Italiana). That puts the company’s passionate and experienced team in pole position to help shape the future of road transport.
“When Iveco merged with CNH, it basically disappeared as a separate business,” CEO Gerrit Marx says. “As an independent company, we are now much stronger. We are in an ideal position to tackle industry challenges such as alternative fuels, autonomous driving, and new business models. We are free to raise our own capital, find partners more quickly, and build a company that is totally focused on producing more innovative and more environmentally friendly trucks and buses. We are a team full of energy and drive.”
Iveco Group is a hotbed of creativity, inventiveness, and collaboration. It is a place where new ideas are embraced and teamwork is encouraged across all levels.
“At Iveco, there is no space for vanity or arrogance,” Marx says. “With the challenges that we face in going digital and going electric, we simply have no time to lose on ego. We are humble fighters and fearless creators.”
With one of the most innovative cultures and leanest cost structures in the business (only 6.5% in SG&A), Iveco Group is proving that the keys to success in today’s transport industry are not status and size, but agility and nimbleness.
Iveco’s fleet-footedness has allowed it to quickly strike partnerships with innovative companies that are leaders in the technologies changing the face of road transport.
With Plus, a U.S.-based startup that develops software for self-driving trucks, Iveco is among the leaders of a revolution in which truck owners can spend most of their time in the cabin supporting their business rather than driving the vehicle. With South Korean automotive and fuel-cell company Hyundai, it has partnered with a leader in the race to the hydrogen-powered future. And with NASDAQ-listed Nikola, Iveco is making electric trucks in a German plant in record time, with the first models for the European market due for delivery next year.
“At Iveco Group, we are fearless. We have the freedom to create, to innovate, and to change the world.”
Gerrit Marx, CEO, Iveco Group
“Our partners are helping us leap forward in technology and accelerate in areas where it does not make sense for us to invest on our own,” Marx says. “Time is on our side. Our team is totally complementary and completely focused on transformation. We trust each other’s abilities, we are embracing these opportunities to learn, and we aim to outpace and outsmart all our larger competitors.”
In the not-too-distant future, all of Iveco’s trucks and buses will be powered by a mix of traditional fuel, natural gas, electric batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells, depending on the requirements of each customer. In Europe, the company is already providing e-commerce giant Amazon with hundreds of heavy-duty trucks that run on biomethane.
“We have made the strategic decision to move toward electric and alternative fuels,” Marx says. “Change is coming, and at Iveco Group, we are embracing it. We want to transform not only our own business, but our entire industry.” 
As published in Fortune magazine
