LATEST appointments in the fleet industry.

Zenith men on the move

PHILIP Jerome has moved from sales and marketing director to new business director at fleet management firm Zenith Vehicle Contracts. He has been succeeded by Tim Buchan, who was sales director for LeasePlan UK. Buchan has previously worked with Zenith on a consultancy basis.

CARMAKER Hyundai has a new UK managing director, Tony Whitehorn. He joins from Toyota, where he was operations director. Whitehorn has more than 24 years’ experience in the motor industry, in sales, marketing and aftersales. He joined Toyota in 1989 and had previously worked for British Leyland and Renault.

ELITE Incident Management has appointed Barry Chaplin as business development manager to head up a planned corporate expansion drive. Chaplin has 22 years’ fleet industry experience, including senior positions with Arval and Inchcape Fleet Solutions.

MANAGING director Ewan Ramsay is leaving DaimlerChrysler Retail at the end of the year to join Honda UK as general manager of cars. He will be replaced by Neil Williamson, currently director of network development at DaimlerChrysler UK.

ROBERT Kitchin has taken up the position of national accounts manager at contract hire firm Prohire. He will be responsible for Scotland and the north of England. Previously, Kitchin worked for Iveco as regional fleet sales manager and before that was an engineer.

EMPLOYEE car ownership firm Provecta Car Plan has appointed Alan Hale as fleet director with responsibility for vehicle maintenance and disposal.Hale, who has more than 25 years’ fleet industry experience, will lead the commercial department. Prior to joining Provecta, Hale was a director of Inchcape Fleet Solutions and has held senior positions at Manheim Car Auctions, VELO and Masterhire.

PAUL Wilcox, formerly marketing director at Nissan Motor GB, has been promoted to vice-president of marketing at Nissan Europe. He has been replaced by Justin Elias, formerly commercial operations manager at Renault.

JULIE Dawe has joined ING Car Lease as marketing executive. Dawe has a marketing background spanning various industries including pharmaceuticals, internet security and a Government learning and skills organisation.

MARIE Harris has been appointed to head up RAC Auto Windscreens’ new resource planning team, responsible for managing more than 1,100 glazing technicians across the UK. Harris joins from RAC Rescue, where she was national planning manager for RAC patrols for six years.

CITROEN has created a new position to try and improve fleet sales in the UK. Ian Hughes, formerly manager of corporate operations at Honda, has been appointed head of UK corporate sales, with a foot in both fleet and remarketing departments. A Citroen spokesman said the last three years had seen an almost entirely new product line, which had been successful with retail customers. The firm now wants to see similar success in fleet.