Changing pace: Andrew Ellis was the head of PR at Suzuki for seven years and started with SsangYong last week.

FORMER Suzuki and Haval public relations boss Andrew Ellis has been appointed the communications and product planning manager for the newly-formed SsangYong Motors Australia.

Mr Ellis was the PR and product planning manager at Haval Motors Australia from its inception in mid-2015 and finished up with the Chinese giant on July 16.

He will report to recently-appointed SsangYong Motors Australia managing director, and another former Haval executive, Tim Smith who started his new role earlier this month.

The new factory-backed operation is based in Melbourne.

As reported by GoAuto, Australia is the only export market in the world with a factory-backed SsangYong operation. It was previously distributed in Australia by Ateco Automotive from 2013 to 2016.

Prior to Haval, Mr Ellis was a public relations specialist at Siemens, and before that he spent seven years as the PR manager at Suzuki Australia.

He also worked in communications roles for Ford in Australia and Thailand, and was a motoring journalist with ACP magazines.

Meanwhile, Ford Australia communications manager Jasmine Mobarek is leaving the Blue Oval to take up a new role as senior manger of social media with the Commonwealth Bank in Sydney.

Ms Mobarek has worked in Ford’s PR team for just over three-and-a-half years and prior to that was the internal communications manager at LaTrobe University.

Ms Mobarek is not new to banking, having worked with NAB in various communications roles for about three years until mid-2012.

By Tim Nicholson