Nigel Hunt retires from DAF Trucks; Gareth Halliwell promoted

DAF Trucks’ Nigel Hunt has retired from his role as retail sales director after 36 years. Gareth Halliwell has been promoted in to the role.

Halliwell has spent 12 years with DAF, and will now follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. Halliwell will leave his role as regional sales manager for the South West.

Hunt joined Leyland DAF in 1983, starting his career with a seven years of sales engineering. His skillset developed in vehicle sales, finding solutions for operators’ problems.

Much of his work helped develop strategies which the entire DAF team took on in in its daily work.

During his career, he established key relationships with Translease, Brake Bros and Sainsbury’s.

Tim Scott, managing director at Translease, said: “Nigel was instrumental in helping the Translease start-up in 2005.

“He has been our Account Manager ever since. Nigel is a true ‘old school’ salesman; cool, calm and collected, and thoroughly likeable.”

“Even under pressure, Nigel was never flustered and was always able to skilfully engineer a deal. He was a great ambassador for DAF Trucks, and I look forward to staying in touch with him following his retirement.”

Hunt, however, will remain in the truck industry, taking on consultancy roles.

His replacement, Halliwell, has experience from his initial role with PACCAR Financial in 2007 as regional business manager. In 2011 he started his role as regional sales manager for DAF’s South West work.

The new retail sales director for DAF, Halliwell, said: “I’m excited to be leading a young, dynamic team alongside the support of our fantastic DAF Dealer network, and on towards even greater market share.”

DAF continued to make changes at the company’s Haddenham head office. James Steward has been promoted to fleet sales director, with Ian Grant getting promoted to fleet aftersales director. The duo have been with DAF Trucks since 2011 and 2005 respectively.