Early days: Anouk Poelmann has started her new job as managing director of Peugeot Citroen Australia, charged with lifting the French brands out from their current sales downturn.

DUTCH-BORN Anouk Poelmann has started work in her new role as Peugeot Citroen Australia’s new managing director, charged with improving the fortunes of the struggling French brands in Australia under new distributor Inchcape Australia.

It is still early days for the experienced automotive executive, who was travelling with Australian journalists, including GoAuto, earlier this month – in her first week on the job – at a drive program in Europe to test Peugeot’s newest cars, the updated 3008 and 5008 SUVs.

As a result, Ms Poelmann was not willing to go on the record about her new Australian role – “let’s talk after our dealer conference in August,” she said, with a smile – but is quickly coming up to speed with the task ahead while at the same time managing a relocation from Luxembourg to Sydney.

To be based at Inchcape headquarters in the western industrial suburb of Norwest, Ms Poelmann is a citizen of the world. She speaks six languages including Russian, has lived in cities all over the planet including Moscow, and comes with automotive credentials from companies like Ford’s former Premier Automotive Group and Volvo.

She is also a known quantity at Inchcape, the global British-headquartered company that handles Subaru here and which took over the Australian distribution rights for PSA Group brands from Sime Darby Motors in June.

By her own admission, Ms Poelmann has been out of the automotive scene for a couple of years – she was previously managing partner of Belgian-based business consultancy Scope – but with a strong track record with managing automotive brands in remote outposts, her primary task in Australia will be to guide Peugeot and Citroen out of the doldrums and into a more viable, stable position.

She acknowledged that the group’s sales performance in Australia – across both brands – is currently sitting at the bottom of the bell curve of success, and that models such as the 3008 and 5008, and the forthcoming updated 308 small car, will be crucial in lifting Peugeot’s sales, which fell to just 2061 units in 2016 and, to the end of June this year, are down 46 per cent compared to the first half of last year.

Citroen is also struggling, managing a mere 424 units for all of 2016, while this year the brand is currently down 44.5 per cent.

With the long-awaited 3008 and slightly larger 5008 seven-seat SUV arriving in August and December respectively, as well as the 308 facelift and all-new 508 next year, the product corridor is starting to widen for Peugeot, while transmission updates to the C4 Cactus and a fresh focus on light-commercial product should help Citroen.

Along with new product comes a refocusing on business basics. The majority of Sime Darby staff who worked on the Peugeot/Citroen side of the business have been re-employed by Inchcape, which is setting up a separate front-of-office department for the brands at Norwest.

GoAuto understands that backroom functions like human resources and finance will be shared between Subaru and the French brands, but departments like product planning, PR and marketing will stand alone.

It is also understood that the entire current Peugeot and Citroen dealer group has resigned with Inchcape, which officially took over on July 1.

What is not on the cards currently for Australia is Citroen’s sister brand DS, with Inchcape officials indicating that it is unlikely to ever make it to Australia as a standalone brand.

Ms Poelmann has promised that a clearer picture of Peugeot and Citroen’s future will be presented at the dealer conference in August.

It will be one of the most important blueprints in the French brands’ long history in the Australian market.

By Tim Robson