Winners 2017

Muers, 50, joined Ford in 1987 in the purchasing team buying production parts such as engine mounting systems. She then moved into sales and marketing where she took on a number of customer and dealer facing roles in the UK and subsequently managed customer satisfaction within our export markets. She rose to become product manager for the European and African export markets. After a five-year career break, she rejoined as product manager for small cars then spent four years overseeing customer relationship management (CRM) and in 2011 developed and launched an e-CRM loyalty programme, the first for Ford in Europe. In her current role she worked with European and global teams to bring Mustang and Focus RS to the UK market and is currently working on the launch of the next generation Fiesta – the bestselling car in the UK for the last 8 years, “achieved in no small part to Chris’s efforts,” according to the Ford nomination.

O’Sullivan, 44, joined Dacia’s parent company Renault out of university in 1996, making good use of her marketing and French degree gained from Lancaster University. She started as a market analyst before moving up to area manager for 16 dealers in 2001. She was then promoted to a marketing role as brand manager for Espace and Vel Satis, before moving to brand manager for Renault vans and executive cars. When she left Renault in 2015 she was head of marketing communications for UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta. In her current role she is responsible for the Dacia brand’s profitability, sales volume, market share, image, product range, pricing and customer offer strategy.

Catlin, 37, joined the UK-based global dealer group in 2015 to oversee the finances of the UK side of the business with its more than 100 dealer outlets and revenues of around £3 billion a year. The job marked her return to automotive after moving in 2006 from team leader within Mercedes Benz UK financial operations to Argos, where she rose to financial controller, and from there to director of group finance for Argos’s former parent company the Home Retail Group. She started out in automotive as a intern at Vauxhall before graduating in 2002 from Loughborough University. Angie Lawrence-Scott, head of communications for Inchcape, said: “Claire possesses the ability to make finance look easy, always remaining calm and capable of spinning many plates at one time.”

Maith, 31, is currently the youngest finance director in the Franchise Top 50 Automotive Franchise Dealers. She moved to the role within the dealer group in 2011 having been finance director of Peter Vardy’s schools network. Prior to 2009 she worked as an audit executive at accountancy firm Ernst and Young. As part of her role she oversees all business acquisitions as well as property and land purchases, which have totalled more than £25m since she joined. Mhairi Jenkins, head of people at Peter Vardy, said of Maith: “She demonstrated an ability to influence the day-to-day running of the group to achieve industry-leading results. We are hugely proud of her.”

Gilham, 49, heads the HR function of the globally active UK-based motorsport and transmission specialist XTrac. Among her achievements, she was a key member of the executive team that undertook a management buy-out of Xtrac in March 2015. She is responsible for the recruitment and training of over 300 staff in the UK and the US, after joining Xtrac in 1998. In 2000, Gilham joined the steering committee of the then-new master’s degree in Advanced Motorsport Engineering at Cranfield University, which is designed to train more young people for a career in motorsport.

Searles, 45, launched Smartdriverclub in April 2016, billing it as the UK’s first connected car service for used cars. In the main, the company offers car insurance a claimed 40 percent less than a traditional policy with the fitment of a black box, but it also includes other benefits like mileage and fuel information delivered to smartphone app. Before that, Searles was managing director of telematics specialist Wunelli after joining in 2008. She left in 2015, having overseen its acquisition by LexisNexis Risk Solutions. Prior to that she was chief operation officer of Spanish mortgage lender TSML. She went straight into work after leaving school aged 16.