7:09 am, July 31, 2021
ITV has confirmed Bristol Street Motors chief Robert Forrester’s appearance on its Undercover Big Boss series will be on August 12.
As previously reported by Car Dealer, the CEO of the dealership chain is taking part in the revived and renamed programme that sees head honchos don disguises and overalls to join colleagues on the shop floor and get a taste of what life’s really like at the coalface.
At the end of their stint, they go away with what they’ve learnt, with the aim of bringing in improvements.
Last week, Vertu Motors – which operates Bristol Street Motors – announced that it was launching an enhanced maternity pay scheme to attract more women to the automotive industry.
Vertu chief executive Forrester said: ‘As the leader of a large and fast-growing motor retail business, I have for some time been confronting the stark reality about the gender balance in our sector, including in our own company where less than 20 per cent of our showroom colleagues are female.
Robert Forrester on Undercover Big Boss in the picture released on Tuesday, July 27. Image: ITV/Studio Lambert.
‘We are serious and passionate about attracting and retaining a more gender-balanced retail sales workforce and supporting colleagues through their maternity leave.’
Whether that initiative is connected to his appearance on the ITV show is yet to be revealed, as is whether or not he’s rumbled by any of the workforce.
A trailer for Undercover Big Boss has also been released in which Forrester admits that although he’s been in the business for 20 years, he’s never actually had a customer-facing role.
He’s seen posing as a salesman – his disguise helped by an anti-Covid face mask – and asking a potential customer if they think they’ll be buying a vehicle from the dealership that day. The answer? An emphatic no.
Meanwhile, an employee comments that Forrester isn’t a born salesman. (We like to think that they’re still with the company…)
Robert Forrester in disguise as a salesman for Undercover Big Boss
Elsewhere in the trailer, he’s seen without a face mask in what looks to be a workshop setting.
Robert Forrester in disguise for Undercover Big Boss
The four-part series of Undercover Big Boss starts on Thursday, August 5 with self-made millionaire Alfie Best, the founder and CEO of Europe’s largest residential park home operator, Wyldecrest Parks.
The edition featuring Forrester will be shown on ITV on Thursday, August 12, ITV confirmed today (Jul 27).
The series – originally the award-winning Channel 4 programme Undercover Boss, which ran between 2009 and 2014 – has been brought back and renamed as well as being ‘supersized’, says ITV, and is being made by Studio Lambert once again.
