MAN Truck & Bus is reorganising the management of its bus business. In the newly created role of "Head of Bus" (HoB), Barbaros Oktay will assume overall entrepreneurial responsibility for the bus unit. He will report directly to MAN CEO Alexander Vlaskamp and will have direct organisational responsibility for managing the Bus Engineering, Production and Sales units. In his new role he takes over the leadership role in MAN's bus business from Rudi Kuchta, who becomes the new Managing Director of MAN Truck & Bus Austria.
"Barbaros Oktay is an internationally experienced manager with proven competence. His main task will be to consistently implement our comprehensive package of measures to improve earnings and to make the bus business sustainably profitable again," says Alexander Vlaskamp, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus SE. Sales in the bus business had fallen from around 7,400 units in 2019 to around 4,600 units in 2021. The situation also remained tense in the past 2022 financial year. Although sales here increased by about 180 units to about 4,800 vehicles compared to 2021. But the recovery, especially in the coach market, which has been hit particularly hard by the Corona crisis, continues to be delayed.
"The bus business will continue to be an important part of MAN's product portfolio in the future - alongside trucks, vans, and engines as well as services related to passenger and cargo transport." Barbaros Oktay began his career at MAN Truck & Bus in 2004 at MAN Türkiye A.Ş.'s production site in Ankara. Most recently, Oktay held the positions of Head of Bus Solutions at TRATON and Head of Bus Engineering, Product & Project Management at MAN Truck & Bus SE
as Senior Vice President. In his new role he takes over the leadership role in MAN's bus business from Rudi Kuchta (left), who becomes the new Managing Director of MAN Truck & Bus Austria and replaces Robert Katzer (right), who is moving to MAN Truck & Bus SE after six years in Austria and will take over as Head of Sales Bus in the new structure. "Rudi Kuchta managed the bus business for many years and was an important and trustworthy contact for our
customers. Most recently, he led the business through the difficult phase of the pandemic, where important sales markets were lost. On behalf of the entire Executive Board, I would like to thank him for his extraordinary achievements and his great commitment to the bus business and wish him every success in his next task as our new Managing Director of MAN Truck & Bus Austria," says Alexander Vlaskamp.