Main man: Olivier Daurele is PSA Group’s top representative in Australia, overseeing the Oceania region and playing a key role in building up its brands alongside independent distributor Inchcape Australasia.

PEUGEOT Citroen Australia (PCA) has taken steps to reshape its senior management team and operations as the new independent distributor – a subsidiary of Inchcape Australasia – attempts to improve the fortunes of the brands in this market.

PSA Group also recently appointed a new Australian-based country manager in this region, Olivier Daurele, who is the French car-maker’s top representative here and works alongside Inchcape as the main conduit between the factory and distributor.

Among the recent appointments at PCA, Justin Narayan has signed on as product planning manager while Kieren Gradidge has taken on the newly defined position of national training manager.

Mr Narayan joins the team from within Inchcape, having served for the previous 12 months as social media and content specialist with Subaru Australia.

Prior to that, he worked for almost two years as a digital marketing executive with Kia Motors Australia and about 18 months with media agency Max Media Lab, primarily working as a digital/social media manager on the Audi Australia account.

He also worked in the digital/social media sector with MJW Australia and MotorCulture, and earlier spent two years as a motoring journalist with the Express Media group working on a variety of performance car titles.

Justin Narayan

Mr Gradidge joined PCA towards the end of last year and is charged with management of the technical training requirements and related operations across the newly configured joint Peugeot/Citroen dealer network comprising 35 outlets.

He previously spent almost 15 years with Volkswagen Group Australia, most recently as technical training manager after working his way up through the ranks in related roles such as technical support specialist and technical training specialist.

He started his career working as a technician at Lennock Volkswagen in Canberra.

PCA is still to confirm other appointments – a new marketing general manager is understood to be starting soon – but at the Peugeot 5008 launch earlier this month the company said the restructure of its operations also now sees a separation in the public relations and marketing functions.

This means recently appointed national PR and corporate communications manager Tyson Bowen now reports directly to PCA managing director Anouk Poelmann, who took the reins around mid-August last year after Inchcape took over PSA brand distribution from previous importer Sime Darby in June.

Kieren Gradidge

“We have consolidated our operations to one site under Inchcape and appointed staff to key positions, with a few more to be finalised,” Ms Poelmann said.

“We will better align our overall operations with training, technical and customer care, working together in the one division. Marketing and PR are now separate but complementary functions.”

Mr Bowen’s predecessor, Jemma White, left the company earlier this year and has set up her own agency, Puddle Marketing.

Meanwhile, as PSA Group’s representative for Australia, New Zealand and other countries across the Oceania region, Mr Daurele has replaced Robin de Michelena who had served in the position for almost seven years.

Mr Daurele has some 20 years’ experience with PSA Group and most recently was working out of company headquarters in Paris as one of the key personnel behind the move for its operations in various European markets – including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Ireland and several in Eastern Europe – to switch from wholly owned factory subsidiaries to independent distributors.

This shift is a specific policy of PSA Group chairman of the managing board Carlos Tavares, who prefers to work with independent operators in many markets where such partners have stronger connections and experience.

Earlier in his career, Mr Daurele spent five years as head of Citroen in Turkey, three years managing PSA’s joint venture with Dongfeng in China and eight years as head of Citroen’s retail operations in France.

In Australia, he works alongside product and market analyst Alexandre Devillers, who came on board soon after the move from Sime Darby to Inchcape.

Mr Devillers previously worked in marketing for Audi Australia and, before that, Maserati Australia and New Zealand, and earlier worked for Mitsubishi Motors in France.

By Terry Martin