New marketing chief at Porsche Australia

BMW Group Australia’s general manager of marketing Toni Andreevski has resigned from his position and is preparing to take on a similar role at Porsche Cars Australia.

Porsche has confirmed that Mr Andreevski will officially start on August 25 as director of marketing, filling the vacancy created when Kevin Nicholls (below) left the company in May to join Jaguar Land Rover.

At BMW, general manager of sales Tom Noble has taken back responsibility for marketing until a replacement is found.

Mr Noble was previously general manager of both sales and marketing but the role was split when the company restructured in September last year, creating two separate departments.

Prior to his promotion as marketing chief, Mr Andreevski had spent almost four years as head of product and market planning for BMW Group Australia – a position that encompassed the New Zealand market as well – after moving from head of corporate communications at the company.

He joined BMW in mid-2006, having worked for almost six years as senior manager of corporate communications at Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific. Before that he was at GM Holden in a variety of public relations roles.

Mr Andreevski joins Porsche at a time of unprecedented growth for the German sportscar brand, which is backing up last year’s record annual sales of 1905 units with a phenomenal 50 per cent increase in new vehicle registrations to the end of July this year (1565).

The recently launched all-new Macan compact SUV is adding incremental sales, while the larger Cayenne – which will be upgraded later this year – remains Porsche’s runaway top-selling model, up 40 per cent YTD and currently accounting for 57 per cent of all new registrations for the brand.

As GoAuto has reported, Mr Nicholls left Porsche Cars Australia for the newly created director of marketing position at Jaguar Land Rover Australia after nine years in senior sales and marketing roles at the company.

He previously worked for Porsche Cars North America as marketing communications manager, and also served as marketing strategy manager for Porsche Cars GB.

Mr Andreevski will work alongside director of sales and operations John Murray, reporting to managing director Sam Curtis who joined the company in March.

BMW Australia, which is similarly on record sales pace this year (up 9.2 per cent), is also preparing for a change at the very top of its organisation, with Marc-Heinrich Werner officially starting as managing director on September 1.

He takes over from Phil Horton, who is returning to the UK to become general manager of Motorrad for the UK and Ireland.