Ogilvie Fleet appoints Paul Griffiths as head of sales in Northern Ireland

Ogilvie Fleet has appointed Paul Griffiths as head of sales in Northern Ireland to further expand corporate sales in the province.

Griffiths (42) has almost 14 years’ experience in the motor trade and more recently the fleet sector, and will take over from Jim Humphreys when he retires in November after three years in the role and many years in the leasing industry in Northern Ireland.

During the next six months the duo will work in tandem to further build awareness of Ogilvie Fleet and its corporate sector offering by seeking to break into the public sector fleet arena and offer its recently launched car salary sacrifice solution.

Ogilvie Fleet, which operates a UK-wide fleet approaching 12,000 units with a target to expand it to close to 20,000 vehicles by 2020, opened its own office in Northern Ireland almost four years ago and has seen its fleet size in the province expand to almost 1,500 company cars and vans.

Ogilvie Fleet sales and marketing director Nick Hardy said: “Jim has performed a magnificent job in using his knowledge and experience of the Northern Ireland fleet market to grow Ogilvie Fleet’s presence.

“He has increased our exposure to fleets in the province and our brand awareness. Ogilvie Fleet is now an established business in the Northern Ireland fleet market and Paul will take our operation to the next level.

“Ogilvie Fleet is in the Northern Ireland contract hire and leasing market for the long term and we continue to seek to grow our presence in what are challenging marketplace conditions.”

Ogilvie Fleet has aspirations to expand its Northern Ireland fleet to approaching 3,000 vehicles over the next few years and Hardy said: “Our proposition is based on the business being cost competitive, delivering multi award-winning customer service and innovative vehicle management solutions and being independent of motor manufacturers, dealers, finance companies and brokers.

“We have been successful in growing our presence in the corporate fleet sector and we now look to continue our growth in that sector as well as exploring opportunities in the public sector and with our salary sacrifice solution. We believe that salary sacrifice is a largely untapped market in Northern Ireland.”

Griffiths, who will head a five-strong sales team, said on gaining his first senior management post: “It’s an exciting challenge. The size of the company and the scale of the opportunity were what attracted me to the role.”

Griffiths has worked at Volkswagen and Toyota/Lexus franchise dealerships in Northern Ireland and was most recently a business development manager and then senior account manager at vehicle leasing and management company Fleet Financial in the province.

During his career with Volkswagen he was named 2001 Fleet Sales Executive of the Year. In between stints in the motor industry, Griffiths spent three years with Yell, where he honed his technology skills with the FTSE company.

Ogilvie Fleet, which is headquartered in Stirling with offices in Birmingham Sheffield and Northern Ireland, provide contract hire, leasing and fleet management solutions for UK and European companies operating vehicle fleets ranging from five to 2,000+ units.

The fleet today totals well over 11,000 vehicles, making the company one of the largest independent contract hire and leasing specialists in the fleet sector.