Fleet Logistics looks to expand UK fleet

Fleet Logistics is looking to expand its managed fleet in the UK following a European management reorganisation.

Rainer Laber, chief executive officer of Fleet Logistics, has appointed four chief regional officers covering Northern, Western, Central and Southern Europe.

The move is designed to give more autonomy to the regions as Fleet Logistics looks to double its pan-European fleet in size from 100,000 to 200,000 vehicles within the next three years.

Former commercial director Stuart Donnelly (pictured) has taken responsibility for Northern Europe which includes the UK and Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland).

Donnelly wants to grow the UK fleet in line with group growth targets by the end of 2013 and sees two main methods of doing so.

“Our first line of attack will be to primarily target organic growth with large fleets operating more than 500 vehicles in the UK,” Donnelly said.

“Our second line of attack will be in providing fleet management services to fleet managers and third party service providers with vehicle sourcing, invoice control and web-based real time reporting to enable self service, best in class fleet management, resulting in optimum value creation.”

The company is adding resource in the UK to help facilitate the intended expansion of the fleet.

Andrew Brown has joined the company as strategic account manager from Mercedes-Benz and a new and experienced business development director for the UK is due to be appointed.

Brown has more than 12 years’ experience with Mercedes-Benz, most recently as key account manager responsible for major fleets operating more than 300 vehicles.

In his new role, Brown will be responsible for helping manage a designated number of large national and multi-national fleets through a consultative approach intended to reduce costs and add value.

UK operations manager Paul Gregory has been appointed country head for the UK.

Formerly customer services manager at Lombard Vehicle Management, a company he worked at for more than 30 years, Gregory now assumes overall operational responsibility for the UK, reporting directly to Donnelly.

“These additional resources – all of them highly experienced appointments- will help us significantly in achieving our goal of substantially expanding our fleet in 2013,” added Donnelly.

Fleet Logistics was acquired by German certification giant, TÜV SÜD, last September and Donnelly said that the company is now investing heavily in its systems and processes.

“We are now backed by our new parent TÜV SÜD which, with revenues in excess of €1.9bn during 2012 and net assets of €1.5bn, has given us a much more stable financial footing as well as reinforcing our philosophy for delivering quality and value,” he said.