Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
Ed Hummel, Auto Trader’s business development director, cut his teeth in retail, selling cars at his local Porsche dealer at weekends when he was 16, before joining Ford Motor Company on their graduate scheme. After five years in sales at Ford, Ed joined Volkswagen UK and held various senior positions across their fleet business.
Ed joined his first private equity backed business – Eurotax Glass’s – in 2011 as Sales Director and then Managing Director.
More recently he was part of the MBO team that took over the leasing division of Kier PLC to create Essential Fleet Services, one of the biggest specialist vehicle leasing businesses in the UK. Following the sale of his share of Essential Fleet Services, Ed joined Auto Trader in 2017 to lead its “non-core” product areas including Motor Trade Delivery (MTD) and the development of its B2B auction platform.
Ian Godbold is responsible for developing and executing an aggressive digital ROI focused business strategy for profitable growth and increase Cambria market share in the automotive dealer sector, whilst effectively integrating online with the core business, through evangelising the business benefits of e-enablement and championing cultural change by shifting mind-sets and working practices so that the operational model is e-business enabled and an “e-mind” set is business as usual
Karl Davis has over 35 years of experience within the automotive industry, both as a successful retailer and with manufacturers. He founded Coachworks Consulting in 2002 and has built it into one of the country’s leading independent automotive consultancies, specialising in helping car manufacturers and retailers fulfil their commercial potential through the delivery of measurable and sustainable business performance improvements. Karl speaks regularly at automotive retailing conferences and is a long-standing member of the Motor Trader Awards judging panel.
Martin Dew is Digital Solutions Director at Autoweb Design a full-service digital marketing and web design agency that work exclusively within the automotive sector.With a broad client base ranging from small independent dealerships to car supermarkets, franchised dealerships, Top 200 groups and manufacturers, Autoweb Design have a wealth of experience and data that has seen enquiry rates for clients increase threefold and more. Martin has previously worked in a generalist, global digital agency managing large accounts in industries spanning from financial to travel and ecommerce. With a first-class mathematics and computer science degree from Oxford University, Martin’s approach to automotive websites fits perfectly with Autoweb Design’s data-driven approach and a belief that websites need to generate maximum profits for their clients.
Martin Sewell is an accomplished motor industry professional, with a diverse range of experience from a thirty-year career spent with OEM manufacturers, PLC and privately-owned retailer groups, in National, Regional and Director roles. Martin has a track record of developing strategy to deliver strong financial performance, alongside high levels of customer satisfaction, in both premium volume and the luxury sports sectors of the market. Business turnaround and change management are core strengths and with a keen focus on changing the motor industry from developing the Volkswagen Retail Experience for the OEM in the late nineties, to working on the early Rockar Strategy with Simon Dixon in 2011.
Martin previously worked with Rockar’s Founder, Simon Dixon, when Dixon Motors was ranked as the 3rd largest car retailer in the UK.. Martin joined Rockar in May 2017, as Managing Director, to be part of driving Rockar’s vision forward into the future.
After gaining his accountancy experience with PwC in the UK and Canada, Mike Jones joined ASE in 2001. Mike was initially responsible for the audit practice, previously known as Trevor Jones Chartered Accountants. Now Chairman he specifically focuses on retailer profitability, corporate finance and providing commentary on key industry issues. Founded over 40 years ago and working with thousands of dealers across 50 international markets to drive performance improvement, ASE use data driven intelligence and unrivalled automotive expertise to maximise profitability and mitigate risk in the global automotive market. From a financial deep dive to identify root causes and opportunities, through the implementation of practical actions to reduce risk and improve profitability, ASE use data analysis using innovative business management solutions to track the improvement in performance.
With a mission to drive dealer profitability, ASE’s team of 250 motor industry specialists are unique, providing a seamless solution from the three divisions, Professional Services, ProFit Optimisation and Business Management, ASE track their impact, prove a return on investment to leave a lasting legacy.
Neil Addley started the business in 2011 and now provides customer insight and online reviews to over 1,000 motor dealerships in the UK. Neil’s background is very much dealer-marketing heavy, having several roles in senior marketing and sales positions at Perry’s, CD Bramall, Reg Vardy PLC and motors.co.uk.
Rachael Prasher joined Haymarket in 1993, as a sales executive on Autocar magazine. Over the next few years she worked across innumerable products from music magazines to travel in addition to Haymarket’s core tech and automotive markets. In 2008 Rachael moved into brand publishing – heading up tech brands – Stuff and What HiFI?, before returning to Automotive in 2015. In 2017 Rachael was appointed Managing Director of Haymarket Automotive, charged with delivering the business transformational plan behind our three brands – What Car?, Pistonheads and Autocar, more recently adding Classic & Sports Car and CAT to the Automotive portfolio.
A social scientist by training and a communications professional by trade, Tim Bond now combines these two fields in his role within the DMA group. He has an MA in Sociology from Aberdeen University and over the last decade, he has continued to utilise this social sciences background to develop research campaigns across a range of sectors. A key part of his role at the DMA is developing actionable insight for the data-driven marketing industry, which also supports the association’s core belief in putting the customer first and leading the business sector in creativity and innovation.