Kia recruits Toyota marketer and Ford sales director

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 20-Jun-07, 08:40

LONDON - Kia has recruited Simon Hetherington from Toyota as its first UK marketing director, together with Yaser Shabsogh from Ford in the role of sales director.

Hetherington has been recruited by his former Toyota colleague Paul Philpott, who joined Kia at the start of the year.

Philpott was commercial director at Toyota and Hetherington was general manager of vehicle marketing. Shabsogh's previous role was director of dealer operations at Ford of Britain.

The appointments come as Kia plans to grow its UK market share from 1% to 3% over the next 10 years and has increased its marketing spend to £18m annually.

Philpott said: "The fact that Simon and Yaser are joining Kia shows how far this brand has come in attracting top people from top brands and the same is true with our products and our network.

"We need have the ideal team in place to really put some emphasis on building this brand and taking it in the direction we want to go."