It’s said that you can’t reinvent the wheel, but that’s just what CMS has been doing for the past 14 years with its alloy wheels. Beginning its life as the first aluminum casting company in Turkey, producing engine parts for local automotive companies, CMS evolved to be one of the biggest producers of light aluminum alloy wheels in the world. Supplying some of the biggest brands in the industry, including Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Fiat, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen, CMS has cemented itself as an industry leader in a little over a decade. The CEO Magazine spoke to CEO Ünal Koçaman about where the company has come from, how it has achieved such success, and whats next.
The CEO Magazine: What was your professional background prior to becoming CEO at CMS?
Ünal: I started work here in 2000 as a finance coordinator. Two brothers were running the company at that time. The company ran in excess of US$40 million, and they produced 1.4-million wheels. At that time, I had just come from the big conglomerate Yasar Groupone of the biggest groups in Turkey at that time. I was the finance coordinator for the group, the Yasar Holding Paint and Chemical Group. I left Yasar in 2000 to go to CMS. At the time, CMS was newly established. It had just separated from its partners and was looking for a new way. It was a transition period because it was a family company with two sons coming in to take over running some parts of the business from their father. So we worked together, with the father and his sons. There was also a general manager at the time.