THE latest appointments in the fleet industry.

New fleet sales chief for MG Rover

  • KEVIN Brown will be responsible for developing relationships with new and existing fleet customers following his appointment as corporate sales director at MG Rover.

    He will be responsible for the 32-strong corporate sales team and will cover areas including leasing, rental, dealer corporate sales, government sales and business development in the private sector.

    Brown said: ‘My message to customers is that we know how to service their business needs. We have coherent and up-to-date MG and Rover products that embrace a wide range of fleet requirements.

    ‘Both have a strong character and pedigree, are well engineered, reliable, economical and they are built in the UK. My focus will be to develop the awareness of our products within the corporate market and promote just how good our cars our.’ Prior to his appointment Brown held several retail and corporate sales positions in the Rover Group.

    He has also worked at KPMG as a management consultant for its automotive practice and as head of strategy for business solutions at the RAC.

  • VEHICLE rental group Avis Europe has appointed Simon Palethorpe as group commercial director. Palethorpe joins from the John Lewis Group, where he was finance director. He also led the build and development of the John Lewis internet and catalogue business. He began his career in consulting and joined PepsiCo in 1994, where he held several European positions, latterly with Tricon Restaurant Services as senior director.

  • VEHICLE remarketing group British Car Auctions (BCA) has recruited Paul Bradbury as managing director responsible for mainland Europe. He will cover nine mainland European countries, working with local management teams and reporting to the group’s chief executive officer, Jon Olsen. Bradbury spent five years at automotive components supplier Wagon, where he was managing director. Prior to this he worked at electronics group Pi Research, Novar and Bureau Veritas.

  • VOLKSWAGEN Fleet Services has appointed John Langman to the newly-created position of fleet controller. He will be responsible for helping the department increase its market share by 10% over the next five years. Langman joins the department following 27 years at Volkswagen, where he held several finance and planning positions. His latest role was strategy and performance management for aftersales. Volkswagen has also appointed Dr Wolfgang Bernhard as a full member of the board of management at Volkswagen AG. He will begin the position in February 2005.