Volvo Group has appointed Mohan Benjamin as Head of Global Leader Development and Business Excellence, giving him a worldwide mandate to strengthen leadership capability and drive performance excellence. With deep experience in leadership development, culture transformation, and values-led leadership, Benjamin will focus on building future-ready leaders through structured, KPI-driven learning frameworks.
Mohan Benjamin’s appointment as Head of Global Leader Development and Business Excellence at Volvo Group signals a decisive step in the company’s ongoing efforts to future-proof its leadership pipeline and strengthen organisational excellence across markets. With a global mandate that spans geographies, cultures, and business functions, Benjamin takes on a role that sits at the intersection of people strategy, performance, and long-term value creation—areas that are increasingly critical for a multinational organisation navigating rapid transformation in mobility, sustainability, and digitalisation.
In his new role, Benjamin is tasked with strengthening leadership capability across the Volvo Group ecosystem while embedding structured, KPI-driven learning and development frameworks that are aligned with business outcomes. The focus is not merely on training leaders for today, but on developing future-ready leadership capabilities that can respond to evolving industry dynamics, shifting workforce expectations, and the growing complexity of global operations. As organisations worldwide rethink how leadership is developed and measured, Volvo Group’s decision to consolidate leader development and business excellence under a single global mandate reflects a strategic intent to connect learning directly with performance, culture, and execution.
Benjamin brings to the role a deep understanding of Volvo Group’s culture, systems, and people, having spent several years shaping leadership development within the organisation. Prior to this appointment, he led Volvo Group University in India and international markets, where he played a pivotal role in advancing leadership development initiatives, strengthening training excellence, and delivering learning programs that were closely linked to performance outcomes. Under his leadership, the focus shifted from traditional, program-based training to more integrated learning journeys designed to build capability at scale while remaining relevant to local market realities.
His work at Volvo Group University was marked by a strong emphasis on aligning leadership development with the organisation’s strategic priorities. As Volvo Group continued to expand its global footprint and invest heavily in areas such as sustainability, electrification, and digital transformation, the need for leaders who could operate with clarity, agility, and purpose became increasingly evident. Benjamin’s approach centred on equipping leaders with not only functional and managerial skills, but also the mindset and values required to lead through change. This emphasis on holistic leadership development has become a defining feature of his career.
Before his tenure at Volvo Group University, Benjamin held key roles in culture transformation and organization development within Volvo IT APAC. In these positions, he worked closely with leadership teams to drive large-scale change initiatives, strengthen organizational effectiveness, and build cultures that supported collaboration, innovation, and accountability. His experience in the IT and digital domains provided him with valuable insights into how technology-driven change impacts people, structures, and leadership expectations—insights that are especially relevant as Volvo Group continues its digital evolution.
A significant dimension of Benjamin’s professional expertise lies in his work around values-led leadership. As a Barrett Values Centre Certified Consultant, he brings a rigorous, research-backed approach to understanding organisational culture and aligning values with strategy and performance. This certification underscores his ability to diagnose cultural strengths and gaps, and to design interventions that help organisations move toward greater alignment, engagement, and effectiveness. In an era where purpose, trust, and culture are increasingly seen as strategic assets, Benjamin’s values-led perspective adds depth to his leadership philosophy.
In his new global role, Benjamin is expected to build on this foundation by creating leadership development frameworks that are consistent yet adaptable, global in intent but local in execution. With Volvo Group operating across diverse regions and markets, the challenge lies in maintaining a coherent leadership philosophy while respecting cultural nuances and differing business contexts. Embedding KPI-driven learning and development frameworks is a key part of this mandate, ensuring that leadership development is measurable, accountable, and closely linked to business performance.
The emphasis on business excellence alongside leader development reflects a broader shift in how organisations view learning and development functions. Rather than operating as standalone capability-building units, these functions are increasingly expected to drive tangible improvements in productivity, quality, and operational effectiveness. By combining global leader development with business excellence, Volvo Group is signalling that leadership capability is inseparable from execution excellence. Benjamin’s role, therefore, is not only about developing leaders, but also about enabling systems, processes, and behaviours that support consistent high performance across the organisation.
Colleagues and stakeholders familiar with Benjamin’s work describe him as a leader who combines strategic clarity with a deep commitment to people development. His ability to translate complex organisational challenges into practical, scalable solutions has been a recurring theme throughout his career. Whether working on leadership frameworks, culture transformation initiatives, or learning delivery models, he has consistently focused on creating impact that is both measurable and sustainable.
As Volvo Group continues to navigate a rapidly changing global landscape, the importance of strong, values-driven leadership cannot be overstated. The company’s ambitions in areas such as sustainable transport solutions, innovation, and inclusive growth require leaders who can balance short-term performance with long-term responsibility. Benjamin’s appointment reflects a recognition that leadership development must evolve in step with these ambitions, moving beyond traditional models to embrace data-driven insights, continuous learning, and a strong cultural foundation.
Looking ahead, Benjamin’s global mandate places him at the heart of Volvo Group’s transformation journey. By strengthening leadership capability, embedding structured learning frameworks, and driving business excellence across geographies, he is expected to play a critical role in shaping how the organisation develops and deploys its most important asset—its people. His blend of global experience, cultural expertise, and values-led leadership positions him well to help Volvo Group build a resilient, future-ready leadership pipeline capable of steering the organisation through the challenges and opportunities of the years ahead.
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