Winners 2017

Atkinson started at Renault in 2003 and has specialized in corporate sales at the brand since 2005. In that time she’s been promoted to become responsible for all contract hire and leasing sales in the south of the country, as well as having national responsibility for sales to rental firms. Her boss Mark Dickens, head of fleet sales, reports she has consistently managed to outsell her male counterparts during her career in what’s still a male-dominated environment (she’s the only women in Renault fleet sales). Dickens describes her as widely respected in the fleet business and a “shining example of a brand ambassador for Renault”.

Allen, 39, joined Kia in 2013 after developing her career as an automotive business analyst, first for ProQuest and then for Snap-On Business solutions, where her clients included Volvo Trucks and Volvo. She left Snap-On with the title of customer service team manager, overseeing nine analysts. At Kia she was promoted to her current role in 2015, where she creates Kia UK’s data strategy. She leads a project to create a new system to better capture customer data as well as helping create a better sales process. She holds a degree in international business from the University of Brighton.

Freeman, 39, started her automotive career working for Peugeot as a way to continue the French language she learned as part of her degree from Nottingham University. There she rose to the title of district parts and service manager, before deciding she wanted to work for, in her words, a more dynamic brand, in 2011. In the last four years in her role she has grown parts sales in her region by 76 percent, and improved retention of Kia customers by 15 percent by bringing in and promoting Kia Service Plans. 

Johnson, 31, started at Toyota in 2005 on a student placement on the retailer systems team as part of her business management degree course at Nottingham Business School. She graduated from that with a first-class degree in 2007, and won a full-time job at Toyota as project manager of consumer life-cycle management. She moved in 2010 to become a product specialist for models such as the Lexus CT200h, Toyota Yaris and GT86, before being promoted to aftersales field manager in 2012. After another two years, she was promoted again to customer connection and experience innovation manager, helping to better understand what driver customers to buy Toyota cars, before moving in 2016 to Toyota GB’s consumer unit focused on improving the customer experience. On nominating her Robin Giles, Toyota GB’s director of HR, said: “Emma is very well respected and is a great example of how a graduate placement can be the catalyst to a rewarding and successful career.”

Headings, 35, has spent the last 12 years of her career at the VW Group in the UK after gaining a degree in managerial and administrative studies at Aston University. She has switched between the different brands in the group, starting as systems manager for Seat, before moving to business sales for the Spanish brand. As a product manager at Audi between 2011-2016, she was responsible for the pricing and specification of the Audi SQ5 performance SUV, and managed the A5 through a facelift and into a new generation. Headings “has an inquisitive, challenging nature which helps shape the future direction of the business,” according to her boss Warren Richards, head of service and parts for Skoda.

Blair, 43, came to automotive through the fleet business, first working in a car leasing office for the Highland Health Board in Inverness, before moving to ever more senior dealership roles in corporate sales from 1996. She switched to national sales operations in 2009 when she moved to Citroen UK as a regional business centre manager, again focusing on fleet sales, and taking the regional manager job for her native Scotland for Subaru in 2009, the company’s largest region in terms of volume. The managing director of Subaru UK’s parent firm IML, Paul Tunnicliffe, describes her as “totally professional and results driven”.

Dean, 40, joined Ford in 1995 working for the purchasing and logistics team, before switching to sales and marketing. Notable achievements in this role included developing and launching the successful Ranger Wildtrak variant of the pickup while working on the commercial vehicle team. She then switched to advanced planning, working again on forthcoming commercial vehicles before moving over to the European programming team, where she managed production requirements across Europe. Back at Ford of Britain in 2014, she became a senior manager in consumer and dealer marketing, before moving into her current role managing the eastern sales region, including London, which delivers around a quarter of Ford’s UK sales. While working for Ford she completed her first degree and subsequently went on to achieve her masters in 2002 in business administration and management. Within the company she co-chairs a Personal Development Committee which focuses on the individual development of sales and marketing employees.

Murphy, 40, moved to automotive website specialists GForces this year after making a name for herself launching Seat’s innovative store in the Lakeside shopping centre. “This alone is a significant achievement and contribution to the automotive industry,” says Kevin Robins, group enterprise delivery director at GForces. Murphy started out in the automotive business working for Ford where she joined as credit graduate trainee, before moving to Mazda in 2004 as a business manager. She left there in the position of customer experience product manager, working on the firm’s website, before moving to VW Group as network strategy manager for Seat in 2013. She was promoted to retail concept project manager before the switch to GForces.

The dealer group Grieveson, 35, is now director of was started by her grandfather, but she has independently proven her success within it. When she joined in 2007, turnover was £45 million. Now it turns over £88 million from five Vauxhall sites, three for Suzuki and one each for Ford, Kia, Seat and Hyundai. Grieveson was promoted to general manager of one of the loss-making sites in 2010, and after three years turned it around to make a three percent profit margin. She is now a director of the group, overseeing day to day running and its expansion plans. She continued her education while working there, and in 2012 completed a masters degree in strategic automotive management at Loughborough University.