7:30 am, January 12, 2023
Former Volvo Cars UK managing director Jon Wakefield has been appointed CEO of Harwoods Group, it has now been confirmed.
Yesterday afternoon, Car Dealer exclusively revealed rumours Archie Harwood, the group’s current CEO, was stepping down.
Staff told Car Dealer they’d been briefed about the changes at the top on Tuesday. In a statement to Car Dealer those moves have now been confirmed.
As well as appointing former Volvo Cars boss to the CEO role, two non executives have joined the board.
William Fall and former Benfield boss Mark Squires have joined the group as non executive directors.
Archie Harwood will remain with the group and takes on the role of chief transformation officer.
He said: ‘With the appointment of our new CEO and non-executive directors, 2023 is off to an exciting start already for the Harwoods Group, and I look forward to stepping into my new role as Chief Transformation Officer.
‘Having been CEO for the past four years, I was at the helm of our major digital overhaul. My new role will allow me to remain focused on our disruptive new digital initiatives and their planned roll-out.
‘I believe the collaboration between myself and Jon will enable us to drive growth and improve effectiveness across Harwoods as we move into what is potentially going to be a challenging year ahead for the automotive industry.’
Harwoods runs dealerships on the south coast in Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex and Kent.
The family business was established in 1931 and represents brands including Audi, Jaguar Land Rover, McLaren and Aston Martin.
It was the 33rd most profitable group in the latest Car Dealer Top 100 list.
Wakefield worked for Volvo for six years in the UK as sales director and then managing director.
He was then moved to Sweden to run their home country market as managing director and then promoted to VP Western Europe. He left Volvo a year ago.
He said: ‘I am delighted to be joining Harwoods at this exciting time.
‘The brand has an impressive set of core values which place its customers first and share many synergies with the brands I have previously worked for.
‘I look forward to helping them to grow and develop their brand in my new role.’
Before he worked for Volvo he had a career in the dealer world working for Inchcape and Porsche Retail Group.
In the statement to Car Dealer, Harwoods said the changes come as part of an ‘ambitious growth strategy to transform their new and used car sales both on and offline’.
Harwoods Group launched a new CRM powered by Salesforce along with an integrated e-commerce enabled site in late 2022.
The group said it also plans to ‘scale the business’ and said the board changes were ‘part of broader succession planning’.
Harwoods’ two Non-Executive Directors, William Fall and Mark Squires, are to ‘bring a wealth of experience’ across the motor and financial sectors from Citibank Global Markets and Benfield Motor Group.
Harwoods said: ‘They will oversee the company’s direction and progress as well as monitor business performance while challenging and supporting the executives on strategy and succession.’
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