Business Line Manager - Buses-MEA

Location: Riyadh

Reports to: Regional Head, Africa - Middle East - Türkiye

Key interfaces: Global Bus Business Unit; R&D; Finance; Supply Chain; Homologation; Customer Service

Role purpose:

Own the regional bus, midi-bus and minibus offer and develop profitable public-transport, school, coach, airport and institutional mobility business through market-led product strategy and disciplined execution.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define segment and product roadmaps for city bus, BRT, intercity/coach, school, airport and minibus applications.
• Map public and private buying cycles, fleet renewal plans, funding structures, local-content rules and tender specifications.
• Own positioning, pricing/TCO frameworks and product-market fit by country, including energy, infrastructure and operating assumptions.
• Lead tender product strategy and compliance reviews with clear compliant/adaptable/non-compliant assessments.
• Drive demonstrations and pilots from objective definition through measurement, customer evidence and conversion plan.
• Coordinate homologation, body/configuration, charging, depot integration, service, parts and training readiness.
• Build reference projects and reusable cases; support government and operator engagement with data-backed value propositions.
• Provide regional requirements and volume cases to global product planning while controlling unnecessary variants.

Success measures:

• Bus order intake, revenue, margin and tender win rate
• Qualified tender and fleet pipeline
• Pilot-to-order conversion and reference projects
• On-time product/homologation readiness
• Price realization and TCO competitiveness
• Forecast accuracy and product complexity reduction

Candidate profile:

• 10+ years in bus, public transport or commercial-vehicle product/sales roles
• Strong knowledge of tendering, operator economics, route/duty-cycle analysis and depot/charging requirements
• Credibility with authorities, operators and technical stakeholders
• Commercially rigorous, able to balance customer needs with product economics
• English fluency; Arabic, Turkish or French advantageous; frequent regional travel

Leadership expectations:

Think big and play big, while remaining fact-based and hands-on. Put the customer and vehicle uptime at the center; collaborate across functions and cultures; make ownership visible; communicate concisely; escalate early; and follow commitments through to measurable results.