After starting his career in the motor industry in 1994, Marius Barnard spent 26 consecutive years with the Barloworld group. Marius began his career as a Sales Executive for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and moved into commercial vehicles sales two years later where he began his “trucking” career as a Mercedes-Benz Transport Consultant. Marius held various senior management positions in Sales, Service and Customer Management and in 2007 was appointed Dealer Principal and General Manager at Garden City Commercials, a franchised dealer group for Mercedes-Benz Trucks and Vans, Freightliner, Fuso and Western Star. Through customer dedication and market focus, Marius led the dealership to win numerous awards, boasting five consecutive Dealer of the Year awards, over 20 category awards as well as the coveted Mercedes-Benz Chairman’s Award. Marius spent a total of 20 years with the Mercedes-Benz brand and served as Chairman of The National Dealer Council for Mercedes Benz South Africa. At the end of 2014, Marius joined the Barloworld Transport Exco team as the Fleet Executive. He is responsible for the total cost of ownership of Barloworld Transport’s fleet of vehicles, including commercialization, procurement and disposal, group workshops (of which there are 23), group tyres, RTMS and PBS accreditation, technical, compliance and group fuel. Barloworld Transport operates over 1400 commercial vehicles and 1800 trailers from 38 depots throughout Southern Africa. This includes long distance and general freight, fuel and chemicals, refrigeration, abnormal, warehousing and distribution, mining and construction, timber and agriculture Transport.Whilst managing the Barloworld Transport Fleet, Marius successfully lead his team into developing a Commercial Vehicle Leasing business within Barloworld’s AVIS Fleet division as well as the commercialization of all functions to the external market, creating additional value streams to Customers and increased revenue to the business.In September 2020 Marius joined Babcock International and became managing director of Babcock Africa’s Transport Solutions business (Babcock is the sole importer and distributor of DAF trucks and parts in South Africa).