I am one of four appointed Senior Vice Presidents in DFCV, the joint venture between Dongfeng and the Volvo Group. My responsibilities include running six vehicle subsidiaries. I have been with the Volvo Group, working with trucks, for over 30 years. During this time I have mostly worked within product development and project management. When I moved to Wuhan City in early 2014, I was alone for the first few months. Communication was very challenging, as very few people speak English outside the larger metropolitan areas in China. I had two lifelines at that time my translator, who was with me constantly in my daily work, and the girl who helped me with finding an apartment to live in both of them just a couple of years older than my own daughter.

My husband moved from Sweden to join me after a few months. He is now working at Dongfeng, which we are very happy about. There is now another Swede in the team I work with, as well as colleagues from India, France and the UK. This has made things much easier, as we are able to compare our experiences of living outside our respective comfort zones. My own contract here is for three years, so we dont need to make a decision on our longterm future just yet. Our kids are grown up and are back in Sweden making their own way in life. I think they wondered what their parents were doing taking off across the world! ALASTAIR MACDUFF PHOTO: LARS ARDARVE Y R E W O L E L O C N Change is an opportunity to learn a more effective way of doing something :

O T O H P effective way of doing something, to make something more marketable, for example. I have used my background when adapting to change. I started at Volvo Financial Services as a Collections Specialist in 1998. My duties here included helping customers to make payment arrangements and determining the cause of default payments. This proved to be valuable experience, and I was asked to take on a role as a Repossession Specialist. position. I was involved in reviewing the financial health of potential customers. As it turned out, this was a step towards my current role as an Inside Sales Specialist here in Greensboro. My job is now to support the Field Sales Team. We offer finances to customers and facilitate rate concessions. The team relies on us being able to secure these deals. Having credit experience means that I know the way to go about negotiating terms. I have been able to pass this onto my team.

JERRIE CARTER works as an Inside Sales Specialist at Volvo Financial Services in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. Change in my world doesnt just mean doing something new or different. It creates the opportunity to learn a more What I really wanted to learn were the parts of the business I didnt know. We are a finance company and we help dealers to sell trucks. There is a lot to learn. The opportunity came up to be a Retail Credit Analyst and I moved on, eventually working 11 years in this The most enjoyable and interesting aspect of change involves taking what youve learned and applying it in your new circumstances. It comes naturally and makes it much easier to adapt. ALASTAIR MACDUFF 27 I N T E R V I E W I am not a good actor. Life is too short for play-acting. I am pretty open about who I am, so I think Im fairly easy to read.