THE latest appointments in the fleet industry.

PRICEWATER-HOUSECOOPERS has appointed Chris Hibbs as new leader for its UK Automotive group. Hibbs has been at the company since 1990 and his new role coincides with his promotion to partner within the group. Hibbs has advised on acquisitions and disposals, and industry issues including the impact of the End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive. He has also worked with academic bodies on future models for the automotive industry.

DR MICHAEL Kern has been appointed as a new management board member at Volkswagen, responsible for the sales and marketing at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Kern has been at Volkswagen since 1971 and has held several managerial posts throughout the group. In his last position at Volkswagen AG he was chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the Europcar Group in Paris.

RATCLIFF, the commercial vehicle tail-lift specialist, has appointed David Ward as business development manager. Ward will be responsible for the north and the midlands and joins from Bevans Motor Bodies where he was southern area sales manager. Prior to that, he worked as area sales representative at Ratcliff.

KEN Ford has been recruited as divisional director of the automotive aftermarket division at Robert Bosch. Prior to the appointment, Ford had worked as UK sales and marketing director at Tenneco Automotive and has also held a number of senior sales and marketing roles at Federal Mogul. He will be responsible for developing Bosch’s product and service package to the UK aftermarket.

RICH Green has joined GE Commercial Finance Fleet Services as UK managing director. Green has been at GE since 1984 in a number of sales, operations and integration roles including operations director for both GE Commercial consumer Finance and GE European Equipment Finance. He Succeeds Steve McAuley, who left the company last month. The group has also appointed John Higgins as corporate sales manager, David Boxley and David Smith as business development managers and Pam Halliday as new business manager.

DAVID Garratt has joined the Garage Equipment Association (GEA) as chief executive designate. He will succeed John Nelson, who will retire at the end of the year. Garratt joins from Autonomy Multimedia, where he was responsible for producing distance learning training programmes for vehicle manufacturers and he has also worked at Volvo. In his new role, he will be responsible for looking after additional services and assistance the GEA can look to provide.