MECEDES-BENZ USA has appointed Dianna du Preez as vice-president of customer services, moving from her previous position as general manager of vehicle distribution and logistics.

She replaces Christian Treiber who is leaving the company after heading customer services since 2016.

He was previously a director of the service and parts business for Mercedes-Benz Cars after moving from the company’s head office in 2006.

Ms du Preez was previously general manager of the Mercedes-Benz Academy and has also held other management roles at Daimler, including in sales, dealer network development, vehicle and parts logistics, and IT.

She joined Mercedes-Benz in 1998 through the company’s division in South Africa where she was a sales planner, before moving to the US in 2007 as general manager of parts logistics.

In her new role, Ms du Preez will assume overall responsibility for all customer service operations, engineering services, aftersales business development, parts logistics, the Mercedes-Benz Academy and MBUSA’s customer assistance centre.

MBUSA president and CEO Dimitris Psillakis said Ms du Preez was a proven leader whose “broad experience and steadfast focus to advance our customer experience will continue to be a great asset for our company.”

“We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Christian for his nearly three decades of service with Daimler and MBUSA. We wish him the very best in his next endeavour.”

By Neil Dowling