Former Peugeot boss Gillespie moves to Hino trucks

FORMER Peugeot Automobiles Australia general manager Bill Gillespie has joined Toyota’s truck brand Hino Motor Sales Australia as divisional manager of brand and franchise development.

The experienced motor industry executive, who is a former director of sales and marketing at Kia Motors Australia and also previously worked with Hino chairman and CEO Steve Lotter at Toyota Australia, is part of a restructured senior management team at the truck company.

His appointment follows the recent departure of former product strategy, marketing and customer care divisional manager Alex Stewart, who – as GoAuto has reported – has moved to rival Foton Trucks Australia (part of Ateco Automotive) as its new general manager.

According to Hino, Mr Gillespie’s role is an amalgamation of dealer development, aftersales management, corporate brand development, marketing and customer care duties.

At the same time, Hino Australia’s Daniel Petrovski has been promoted manager of product strategy – his fifth promotion at the company in seven years of service, having started as a strategic sales co-ordinator in 2006 and most recently serving as product planning manager.

He also has five years’ experience in product strategy with Volvo Trucks Australia.

Mr Petrovski’s new role at Hino incorporates all product planning and strategies, engineering, development and homologation, which requires him to work closely with Hino headquarters in Japan and local third-party suppliers.

Mr Gillespie left Peugeot in October last year after Sime Darby Motors Group Australia consolidated the roles of general manager for both Peugeot and Citroen, with Citroen chief John Startari taking on the additional responsibility of Peugeot.

As well as being the sales chief at Kia, Mr Gillespie has also worked as eastern regional manager (NSW/ACT) for Nissan Australia, central region manager for Toyota Australia, senior manager for Daihatsu Australia (also part of the Toyota empire) and franchise development manager (NSW/ACT) for Toyota Australia.

Most recently, he has been running his own automotive industry consultancy Obeya Consulting.

“After a lifetime of work in the passenger vehicle market, I’m looking forward to the challenges in the truck industry,” Mr Gillespie said.

“I’ve worked successfully with Steve Lotter in the past, I can see nothing but a bright future for Hino in Australia and I’m glad to be a part of it.”

Meanwhile, Hino recently held its 2013 Dealer of the Year presentation at a gala event in Sydney, with CMI Hino Adelaide taking the Metropolitan DOTY award and Newcastle Hino snaring both the Regional DOTY title and top regional sales volume.

CMI Hino Adelaide’s Chris Morrison and Newcastle Hino’s Sean Lynch received their respective awards from Mr Lotter, who thanked the entire dealer network for helping the company reach more than 4150 sales last year and grow its market share to 15.8 per cent.

“No matter how good Hino’s trucks are, this growth wouldn’t have been possible without a strong dealer network,” he said.

In accepting the top metro award, Mr Morrison said that “the collective of all the departments – service, parts and sales – combined with an improvement in our fleet sales helped us with this great result”.

Mr Lynch also said that teamwork, and the right personnel, made all the difference when running a successful dealership.

“It’s always down to people – you’ve got to have the right ones and you need to have all the team working as one,” he said.

Other major award categories and recipients were: number one sales volume (WA Hino Sales and Service) metro sales excellence (Adtrans Hino) regional sales excellence (Wideland Hino) metro parts excellence (CMI Hino Adelaide) regional parts excellence (Jacob Hino) metro service excellence and Hino Financial Services award (Prestige Hino) and regional service excellence (Newcastle Hino).