Thursday 15th October 2009

Aston Appoints New Commercial Boss

Former Tesla marketing man taken on by a confident Aston Martin

---

A Rapide - not Mr Van der Sande

Aston Martin has appointed Tesla's former vice president of marketing, Michael Van der Sande, as its new Chief Commercial Officer.

The appointment - which creates an entirely new role - is a clear indication of Aston Martin's confidence that it will comfortably weather the current economic storm. The move also helps to allay fears for the future of the company, after Aston's Kuwaiti backers revealed they were struggling to refinance their debts.

Van der Sande spent less than 12 months as Tesla's marketing boss, however, and is better known for the twelve years he spent in senior European marketing roles at Harley Davidson motorcycles.

"Michael brings a wealth of experience at a global level to Aston Martin and I am delighted to welcome him to the team" said Aston CEO Ulrich Bez. "His broad and successful experience on the global stage will help us to further develop Aston Martin's presence around the world."

So will we see the company moving into electric cars or motorbikes any time soon? It's probably fairly safe to rule out an Aston Martin motorbike, but Van der Sande's experience with developing and marketing electric cars would certainly be a boon to the company, should it decide to go down the battery-powered route.

[YKB]

Isn't it 'weather the current economic storm'

[louismchuge]

YKB said:

Isn't it 'weather the current economic storm'

Pistonheads
Spelling doesn't matter!

[Marwood79]

There are 3 versions of that word; Weather, whether and wether. The last is a castrated ram.
You learn something new every day and this error could've been worse.

[Riggers]

Marwood79 said:

There are 3 versions of that word; Weather, whether and wether. The last is a castrated ram.
You learn something new every day and this error could've been worse.

Shame that 'wether' can't be used as a verb! I'll try to get it into a news story soon, though .

Mistake now corrected, by the way...

[robm3]

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

[s5tvr]

robm3 said:

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

It's even more worrying having a Marketing guy in a Financial role as the headline suggests. There's a big difference between CCO and CFO - PH needs to get its reporting straight !.

[dandarez]

Marwood79 said:

There are 3 versions of that word; Weather, whether and wether. The last is a castrated ram.
You learn something new every day and this error could've been worse.

Could've been worse...

Wot? You mean like 'wevva'?

[mark3man]

s5tvr said:

robm3 said:

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

It's even more worrying having a Marketing guy in a Financial role as the headline suggests. There's a big difference between CCO and CFO - PH needs to get its reporting straight !.

Agreed.

They had an ex MB guy as strategic planning chief or somesuch title join a few months back. He was nicknamed the Trojan Horse....

Conceivably they noticed that the cars they don't make any profit on i.e. DB5s are fetching loadsamoney at auction/private sale where the ones they do (DB9, AMV8 and the coming 2,500 Rapides) are somewhat superglued to showroom floors unless the pencil is sharpened dramatically.
Also, said to be producing 3days/single shift. So they need to sharpen their home and overseas sales act quickly.

[PompeyM3]

Aston Martin, it's not too late, I'll do it for half the pay you're paying him, all I ask for is a COMPANY car

[willE36]

Those back windows look waay to small for a car of that size... The C pillars should be pulled back further. It looks like someone has taken a pic of a DB9, stuck it on MS Word, and then stretched it.

From that angle, it reminds me of the Laguna. The coupe doesnt though...


= )

[oilit]

gosh he must be bright, fancy learning all about electric cars and the technicalities in 12 months, and being a martketing guy!! But PH questions whether it means he can help aston go electric ?

I guess if hes like some other marketing peeps he may be able to change a fuse...but help aston build an electric sports car? me thinks not!

Edited by oilit on Sunday 18th October 21:10

[Bodo]

robm3 said:

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

Don't worry; the entire business is led and had be grown by an engineer.

[robm3]

mark3man said:

s5tvr said:

robm3 said:

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

It's even more worrying having a Marketing guy in a Financial role as the headline suggests. There's a big difference between CCO and CFO - PH needs to get its reporting straight !.

Agreed.

They had an ex MB guy as strategic planning chief or somesuch title join a few months back. He was nicknamed the Trojan Horse....

Conceivably they noticed that the cars they don't make any profit on i.e. DB5s are fetching loadsamoney at auction/private sale where the ones they do (DB9, AMV8 and the coming 2,500 Rapides) are somewhat superglued to showroom floors unless the pencil is sharpened dramatically.
Also, said to be producing 3days/single shift. So they need to sharpen their home and overseas sales act quickly.

"But Michael, what about the P&L?"

"P&L??? No what we need is more market perception, analysis and boldness, yes boldness, and a slogan, a good one! Like Jaguar's 'Gorgeous' campaign, that was a cracker! Oh oh and nice brochures! That's the important stuff"

[DickyC]

robm3 said:

Hmmm a Marketing guy in a Commercial role, that'll work well....

Shades of Donald Stokes.