Main man: Ryan Davies now takes on the key role of general manager of passenger vehicle sales at Volkswagen Group Australia, with the countdown now on to the crucial new Tiguan launch.

VOLKSWAGEN Group Australia (VGA) has promoted its national sales manager for commercial vehicles, Ryan Davies, to general manager of passenger vehicle sales, replacing Andrew Savvas who relocates to Dubai this week to become director of Volkswagen Middle East.

Senior product planning and marketing executive Vladan Dimic has been named as the new head of commercial vehicle sales, while among other personnel moves former Ateco Automotive group network development manager David Stone has joined the Sydney-based VGA in a similar capacity – general manager of network development, which is now a standalone department within the company.

VGA has also announced that director of group service Neil Whitehead is preparing to return home to Melbourne for “an extended period of recuperation” after a serious illness.

In a statement, VGA said Mr Whitehead had, up until now, remained working for the company while undergoing physical rehabilitation, and that he was looking forward to resuming his career at the earliest possible opportunity.

For Mr Savvas, the opportunity to relocate to Dubai to further his career was too good to refuse, having worked for VGA over the past four years after moving to the German brand from Toyota Australia, where he was a regional sales manager.

“Volkswagen has great possibilities in the Middle East,” Mr Savvas said. “From a personal perspective, this is a great opportunity. It’s also due recognition of Volkswagen’s achievement in Australia, one of the world’s most competitive markets.”

Mr Davies has led the sales operations of VW commercial vehicles in Australia since 2013. He has several years’ experience working for the company, having earlier in his career served as a product manager, distribution manager and sales and marketing analyst over the period 2001 to 2004.

He subsequently moved to Ateco Automotive, serving as Alfa Romeo national sales manager for almost six years and later dealer operations manager for Ferrari (then part of the Ateco’s European Automotive Imports) for nearly three years. He was working as a regional manager for Ateco before moving to VW three years ago.

One of Mr Davies’ first major tasks as head of passenger vehicle sales will be the launch of the new-generation Tiguan mid-size SUV – a vital model for the German brand as it looks to pull out from its current downturn, which sees passenger car sales down 4.4 per cent to the end of May, while SUV sales are down 13.0 per cent over the same period.

Overall, VW sales are down 4.2 per cent after the first five months of trading.

“Starting in September, we embark on a rollout of outstanding new product,” Mr Davies said. “Tiguan alone is a game-changer.

“We’re a European brand, an aspirational brand, which is why expectations of us are so high – higher, I believe, than those around any price rivals. We’ll meet those expectations not only with the products you’ll see in dealerships, but with the dealerships themselves.”

Taking the CV sales reins, Mr Dimic has the upgraded Amarok utility as his first key launch later this year. He has worked for VGA for almost 10 years, having relocated to Australia from Volkswagen in Germany.

As general manager of network development, Mr Stone will play a central role in VW’s strategy at a retail level, which has been exposed as needing work in recent years with poor performances in benchmark studies of aftersales service, such as JD Power’s annual Australian Customer Service Index (CSI) report card.

While last year VW was still below the industry average in the CSI study, to its credit the brand had climbed significantly – albeit from the bottom of the table – to sit ahead of Suzuki and Holden, indicating that its efforts in improving its customer satisfaction are beginning to pay dividends.

The effects of the current diesel emissions scandal are still to be seen.

Bringing to the position more than three decades’ senior management experience in the automotive industry, Mr Stone was head of network development at Ateco for eight years. Prior to that he served for three years as general manager of Alfa Romeo and Fiat at Ateco, having returned to the independent distributor after a stint at Toyota Australia as Queensland regional manager.

Earlier in his career he was responsible for establishing the Daewoo dealer network in Australia and New Zealand in the mid-1990s, having performed a similar network development role for Hyundai and Jeep (then part of independent distributor Astre Automotive).

By Terry Martin