INTERVIEW WITH GERRIT MARX GET TO KNOW OUR NEW CEO
Hot on the heels of Gerrit’s arrival, we asked him about his background, passions and the values he holds dear. Want to know more about his vision for our company? Keep reading…
Gerrit Marx
Who is Gerrit Marx?
I would describe myself as curious by nature, and this has always driven me to explore new and sometimes non-linear paths to discover better answers to challenges and turn them into opportunities. I love exploring uncharted territories and I am a diehard tech-head who literally has a license for (almost) any machine that drives on land. I like to get into the deeper and underlying aspects of things, whether that is solving business or product riddles, driving financial performance, or building and growing new teams. And I always want to find the fun in all these things.
I grew up in the German countryside - really in the middle of nowhere – and I think that desire to explore drove me to find opportunities abroad starting with a driving license for motorcycles. Eventually, I got my professional start by joining a multinational global consulting practice, and the rest is history!
What excites you about CNH?
First off, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to bring my experience, mindset and attitude to the table to make a positive impact. I am rejoining a highly capable team of experts in the agricultural, construction and financial services businesses. I will harness and complement their strengths by focusing on what I believe matters most to our success: high-performing teamplay, being close to our customers, top-notch product innovation and quality, and strong financial performance.
Then it is working with incredibly competent people who are passionate about what they do. We have many farmers and construction experts in our teams, and people often tell me about how they grew up on a farm, still run a farm or that they have farming in their family. This strikes me as unique and really connects us to this industry and the amazing products we manufacture. My spouse actually used to run a small livestock farm in Austria herself until recently with the help of a New Holland T5 and a reddy-silverish IH tractor from the 1980s. Obviously, there is also still a very old STEYR old-timer around awaiting resurrection.
Blending our well-established engineering excellence with our emerging and accelerating tech stack is extremely exciting. It is how we enable the noble work of our customers so they can feed the world and build communities. This is a very relevant purpose that matters to me a lot.
When I was a child, I remember being fascinated by how all kinds of machines worked and that is why I chose to study mechanical engineering and later business administration. That gave me the ability to appreciate what true works of art they are, and fed my desire to understand how the world works from products to businesses, the relevance of teams, and society overall. Eventually I was entrusted with my first CEO role and since then I closely follow product development and everything that comes with it.
I am also convinced that CNH is the only truly global player in our industry, and our brands each have the opportunity to claim their own turf – more so than ever before.
Gerrit visiting the New Holland team in Antwerp, Belgium
What is your impression of CNH’s recent business challenges? And how can we overcome them?
What strikes me most is the unnecessary increase in quality issues on the iron side. This is something that we need to get a handle on and fix very quickly as we accelerate in embedding new layers of tech.
Another challenge we will turn into an opportunity is to accelerate the convergence of precision technology and iron. These two aspects need to be brought together in a way that improves the functionality, user-friendliness, and responsiveness of the systems. We must meet and then become the very best choice in our industry.
But above all, the key challenge is creating an aligned team and clearly differentiating our brands, which complement each other across our entire product line-up. We are one CNH, and we are the home of many, very special brands. We need to spotlight and emphasize our brands by focusing on better defining and rediscovering their respective brand identities, which will predominantly come through the user experience and functionality further refined by precision and automation.
Our customers choose one or several of our brands, and primarily experience our products through what they can see and what they can touch. We can strengthen and better define that user experience by instilling the strength, the heritage, and the identity of our iconic brands in those products. The iron underneath might be largely consistent across brands, yet the user experience should be differentiated, as our customers have different preferences and areas of focus. Playing our brands well is a strength and will set us apart.
How would you describe your leadership style?
My leadership style is inclusive and based on trust. I am certainly no micromanager. You will often hear me say that weak leaders create followers and strong leaders create leaders. This means that leading leaders can be very difficult at times because they challenge you in the right way. They call you out and it is not always easy to find common ground when debating difficult choices. But once you have found the way forward, you have a very powerful team who will help advance the company.
I am also very demanding in terms of quality of work. Leaders need to know what is right, know the answers and to be very upfront about issues. The most important thing is winning over customers and delivering exceptional service. Nothing else matters. I will surround myself with leaders who have customers at the top of their minds and with whom we will collectively take better decisions faster to get ahead step by step.
Gerrit speaking to colleagues from the STEYR brand in St Valentin, Austria
What’s your favorite thing to do after a long day?
I am a gym rat working out whenever I can. I also love getting on a spinning cycle and doing an hour-long workout first thing in the morning. If I can, I tune into news channels to get properly up to speed on what happened overnight and what lies ahead. In the evenings I spend as much time as I can with my family and friends when I am in Munich. When I am traveling, I also enjoy spending quality time with my colleagues learning about their lives and what makes them tick.
It is important that I am approachable.
It is that human factor that makes a company real, effective, and special. We are a collection of diverse individuals and we are social beings who need to meet, listen to each other, discuss and act in concert. A company is the sum of its people and we are CNH at this point in time and for the future. We all need to remember that. We need to make an effort to meet in person and talk to each other. Nothing replaces direct interaction, joint lunches or chats over a coffee. We built offices for that reason and it’s perhaps time to make more use of them again. That’s where you will find me most of the time.
