QUON POPS THE QUESTION

IF JOACHIM ROSENBERG doesn’t play poker, then he probably should.

I Like, across a table in a quiet upstairs meeting room at UD headquarters in Japan late last October, he sat confident, considerate and calmly poker-faced as questions were dealt. Simple enough questions at first, but as the interview moved up a few notches and Isuzu came casually into the discussion, his manner and mannerisms didn’t flinch. Not one iota.

It was much the same in mid-December when he visited Australia for a media event at the handover of a big batch of UD Quons to Linfox chairman Peter Fox. Despite the pleasantries and the plaudits, there was absolutely nothing to even remotely hint that little more than a week later, massive moves would be announced. It’s questionable whether even Fox knew what was coming.

Of course, Rosenberg is no aspiring executive waiting for a chair at Volvo’s ‘high rollers’ table. He’s already there, big time, and what he lacks in lofty stature is vastly countered with the corporate clout defined by a business card that reads ‘chairman and representative director of UD Trucks’ as well as ‘executive vice-president and executive board member of Volvo Group’.

As such, by necessity and design, he plays his cards close to the chest. Very close, but perhaps never more than during the last year or so when he was almost certainly up to his armpits in negotiations which would ultimately lead to the astonishing announcement