Three months into my traineeship my supervisor said to me, “How do you feel about improving our supplier relations in Spain?” That was my first international deployment, and it wasn’t the last either. While I was a trainee I managed several projects aimed at optimizing purchasing at MAN Truck & Bus. This gave me the chance to prove that I could solve problems myself and operate confidently in unfamiliar territory. Later I was involved in establishing the joint venture in India, and because there were few existing structures it was like being a pioneer – challenging and exciting at the same time. Since the beginning of 2009 I’ve been responsible for product planning for vehicles built in China for other growth markets. If you’re open to learning new things every day, you’ll make an impact at MAN.

After finishing school and training as a car mechanic, I became a development assistant in Ethiopia. Working as a mechanics instructor in Africa, I came to understand first-hand the value of knowledge. This experience had such an impact on me that after training as a master mechanic and getting my diploma in business administration and engineering, I joined MAN as a personnel development officer. An innovative company like MAN needs talented new people coming up through the ranks, and my team and I at the Munich training center make sure that happens. We encourage enthusiastic young employees to pursue a model of independent lifelong learning. We empower them to view change as an opportunity and to acquire the qualifications they need in the future on their own initiative.

Sometimes that means using unconventional methods, like the MAN Apprentice Academy, which we set up a few years ago. Trainees share their knowledge with colleagues from different departments: trainee mechanics might give people from the commercial side a basic knowledge of car maintenance, or trainee chefs might run courses on cookery and nutrition.
If you’re willing to learn and grow with every new challenge, MAN will support you all the way.

When MAN took over Volkswagen's Brazilian commercial vehicles operation in 2009 I had already been working there for 15 years, in the assembling line. At MAN I saw that I had a great chance: I put my idea for improving the efficiency of our planning process from spare parts to my boss. He was enthusiastic and gave me the job of implementing my idea right away as project manager. I really hadn't counted on that. Today, as supervisory for improving our service level in the spare part department and attend our dealership network, I'm responsible for a complex project designed to optimise our service level. I'm convinced that we'll meet this challenge: we're working on the issues of the future and we're highly motivated.

If you can provide impulses for the future of MAN, you also have a future at MAN. MAN puts its trust in the abilities of its employees.