Fleets in Charge

Peter Campbell is the Financial Times’ Global Motor Industry Correspondent, based in London. He leads the FT’s coverage of the industry, online and in print, and works with a team of local correspondents around the world to cover the major car makers, industry trends and technological breakthroughs. Prior to this, he covered technology and UK company news for the FT. He was named Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards for 2014.

Gerry joined the BVRLA in 2013. In addition to his BVRLA duties, Gerry sits on the Government’s Motorist’s Forum and is a member of the CBI’s Trade Association Council. Gerry has spent most of his working life in the automotive industry, having started his career at Jaguar and Land Rover and subsequently spending 21 years at Volvo Cars. After spells in a variety of senior sales, operations and dealer roles, he was Chief Executive of Volvo Cars UK between 1996 and 2002. He then moved on to a number of international roles at the parent company, culminating with nine years as Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Customer Service.

The Rt Hon Grant Shapps was appointed Secretary of State for Transport on 24 July 2019. He was Minister of State at Department for International Development from 11 May 2015 until 28 November 2015. He was elected the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield in 2005.

The Office of Low Emission Vehicles is the unit run jointly by the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set up to promote cleaner vehicles. Robinson joined the department in 2016 after moving from the DfT’s aviation strategy unit. She has spent seven years at DfT in various senior roles.

Denis is a Technical Director - Sustainable Transport in Ricardo Energy & Environment. Denis leads the Sustainable Transport team and oversees the delivery of policy and technical projects in the areas of electric and alternative fuel vehicles and supporting infrastructure, and the wider decarbonisation of transport. Denis is currently involved in work related to the updates of the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Directive for the European Commission and the assessment of transition to electric vehicles by SMEs in the UK. In his previous work, Denis was involved in large-scale trials of EV user and charging behaviour, assessment of options for decarbonising UK’s HGV fleet and numerous other studies that supported public and private sector clients in the transition to EVs.

Khaled joined Enterprise in 1991 after graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and started his career as a management trainee in Southern California. In 1994, Shahbo moved to the UK to help expand the Enterprise brand as the Regional Rental Manager in the Northwest of England. Just two years later, at the age of 28, he was appointed Vice President/Managing Director in Scotland, becoming, at that time, the youngest MD in the company’s history. In 2015, Shahbo was appointed to his current role of Enterprise Holdings Corporate Vice President/Managing Director for the UK & Ireland with responsibility for all three Enterprise Holdings brands – Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car. Shahbo is also a board member of the Enterprise Holdings Foundation, The British Vehicle Rental & Leasing Association (BVRLA), Enactus, Leaseurope, Bridge Builders and is the former Chairman of the Scottish Tourism Forum.

Richard was appointed into his current role of Managing Director of Motor Finance and Leasing in October 2018. The Motor Finance and Leasing business encompasses Black Horse and Lex Autolease and form part of the Retail Bank of Lloyds Banking Group. Prior to this, Richard was Managing Director of Black Horse. Richard is a member of the senior leadership of Lloyds Banking Group. Richard started his career with Lloyds Banking Group 25 years ago on the graduate entrant programme and has held a number of roles within the Insurance and Finance divisions before joining Black Horse in Retail. Richard was a member of the Insurance Executive team where he was accountable for the Retirement, Bancassurance and Protection business units. Richard is Chairman of the UK Finance & Leasing Association.

Tom has worked in the electric vehicle and wider automotive sector for 12 years. He formerly chaired the UK motor industry’s principle EV group and has extensive knowledge of electric vehicles, infrastructure and associated technologies. His role at bp Chargemaster includes engaging with the media, car manufacturers, government and other stakeholders, and helping to develop strategy. He drives around 30,000 pure electric, zero-emission miles per year.

An automotive industry specialist with two decades of industry experience, Matt has worked across multiple sectors, providing consulting advice to OEMs, finance, suppliers, private equity, government bodies and NGOs. Matt joined the cap hpi consulting team in 2012. cap hpi consulting offers tailored, data and evidence-based insight to clients across the UK and global automotive industry.

Nadhim Zahawi was appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 26 July 2019. He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education from 9 January 2018 to 26 July 2019. Nadhim was elected as Conservative MP for Stratford-on-Avon in May 2010.

James is an acknowledged CV industry figurehead with over 25 years’ LCV and HGV experience in wholesale remarketing and asset management. With a career spanning 3 CV auction businesses, his previous role was in Manheim Auctions where he headed up their CV division for 8 years. He passionately built the team and business to a market leading position; receiving client and industry recognition in terms of increased market share and multiple awards for customer service and innovation. In 2018 James moved into Cox Automotive, Manheim’s parent company, in a newly created role that today sees him researching and presenting CV insight and thought leadership to strategically assist clients in this specialist sector.

Supporting Enterprise Nation's small business community to maximise opportunities to grow, connect and engage. Also, programme manager for the Recovery Advice for Business scheme, working with government, professional bodies, and business advisers to deliver free support to small businesses recovering from Covid-19.

Paul is Principal of his own accountancy practice within the AIMS organisation and his intention is to breathe new life into the relationship that clients have with their accountant. With a successful career working at the top of organisations in road and rail transport, construction and gas and power production, Paul has in depth experience of managing organisations through sudden, disruptive changes.

Jo is passionate about creating awesome places to work, where people feel confident and empowered to perform at their best. Having spent 17 years developing and nurturing her leadership skills in Marks and Spencer, Jo co-founded Triskelion Associates. She has collaborated with a huge variety of clients including Maritime and Coastguard Agency, ENGIE, and Gatwick Airport in enabling them to create people-centred cultures and optimise the potential of their people. She has assessed around 100 organisations against the Investors in People framework and listened to feedback from thousands of people about what matters to them and what they need from their leaders and managers. She uses this incredible insight to provide consultancy, training and coaching to leaders at all levels.

Founder of innovation studio Lola Media, Erica Wolfe-Murray helps companies innovate and grow through inventive use of their intellectual assets and IP. Her career spans advertising, design, product development, licensing, retail and tv production working for clients as diverse as London Transport and British Airways, to Harvey Nichols, National Geographic and UK Parliament. Having worked as both a creative head and a financial director, she believes that myriad opportunities sit in the interface between inventive thinking and revenue model development. An experienced business growth coach, her book, ’Simple Tips, Smart Ideas’ was a finalist in the Business Book Awards 2020.

Amanda joined the BVRLA in July 2002 as a legal and policy executive responsible for running the BVRLA’s committees alongside supporting the BVRLA’s policy work. Amanda was promoted to Operations Manager in July 2018, Head of Operations in July 2019 and Director of Fleet Services in January 2020. Amanda is responsible for leading the activities of the BVRLA’s alternative dispute resolution service, fleet services and supporting member's operations relating to DVLA, DVSA and FCA.

Adrian Dally is Head of Motor Finance at the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA). Before joining the FLA, Adrian spent 26 years in policy-making roles in Whitehall and Brussels, specialising in a number of areas including financial services, consumer protection policy, competition and the European Union. During this time he fulfilled a number of roles, including as a UK negotiator in the EU institutions and as private secretary to two cabinet ministers. His last role was at the Financial Ombudsman Service, where he was its Head of Policy.

Jo is the co-founder and Partner at Auxillias Limited, a new legal and compliance firm set up to service the consumer, asset finance and motor finance industry. Jo works with a number of well-known finance providers, brokers and dealers in the automotive, fleet, asset, consumer finance and leasing industries as well as many banking institutions and Fin-techs. Jo deals with a wide range of matters from consumer credit advisory, transactional matters and financial services regulation impacting the finance industry as well as compliance implementation and support with the FCA handbook and Consumer Credit Sourcebook. She also assists clients and advises on contentious matters such as asset recoveries, finance litigation and dispute resolution.

Naveed is a Compliance Consultant from Consumer Credit Advisory Services (CCAS) and has been involved in the BVRLA Leasing Broker Governance Programme for over 2 years. He is an experienced legal and regulatory compliance and audit professional with over 10 years of experience working for large financial services and legal firms in a compliance and auditing capacity.

Paul's most recent role was as Government Affairs Manager at the BVRLA, where he worked from July 2018 to May 2020. Previously, he worked as a freelancer in government affairs and also in the corporate sector as Head of Parliamentary Affairs at National Grid plc. He has also worked for the regulator, Ofcom and for Arts Council England in public affairs and government relations.

Russell is Head of EU Negotiations at the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) where he leads the UK’s premier business organisation’s work on Brexit and the negotiation of the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU. He has a over a decade of experience working in European and British politics, with previous roles in the European Parliament, the Labour Party and the House of Commons.

Lloyd joined SMMT in January 2018, he leads on Customs and Business Preparedness for the end of the transition period along with supporting the wider Brexit work carried out within SMMT. Before SMMT Lloyd worked at Vauxhall Motors for five years, where he spent two of those years in the Government Relations department analysing the impact of Brexit on UK manufacturing, coordinating the European Risk Management Group and supporting on other policy areas. Lloyd started his career on a Business Apprenticeship spending time in Marketing, Finance and Customer Experience before moving into Government Relations/Public Policy.

To follow

Simon has been working on EU exit for several years having joined his current role working on business readiness after two years working in DExEU where he led policy on access to services and benefits. He also spent several months working on the department's Yellowhammer response in the run up to the UK's departure from the EU. Before that his career was in the Home Office working in the migration sphere, latterly on policy, but with many years spent in the developing world in a range of roles in the UK's visa operations, most recently heading up operations in South Asia.

Thomas joined the BVRLA in January 2020. Prior to this he spent three years working with the National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) representing franchised dealer interests and stakeholder relationships across a wide range of issues. This included working extensively with the NFDA CV Division and launching the NFDA’s Electric Vehicle Approved (EVA) scheme. Before this he worked for a research and policy unit attached to Africa’s top University looking at the development pathways of automotive manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa.

Catherine supports the BVRLA’s policy and lobbying activities with specific focus on air quality, future mobility, vehicle terrorism and vehicle technology and data. Catherine has worked in senior policy roles for over 12 years and has experience of working within private, public sector and not-for-profit organisations. She has previously worked for the British Retail Consortium, where she held the post of senior policy lead for crime and security.

Chris is a Chartered Civil Engineer who has been with Highways England since its creation in April 2015 and its predecessor Highways Agency since 1999. Prior to that he worked within the private sector for a consulting engineer (Howard Humphreys / Brown & Root Civil) gaining experience within their traffic, highways and Resident Engineer’s sections.

Richard Banks is a Senior Manager at Transport for Greater Manchester, with responsibility for the freight programme. He has also undertaken a wide range of strategy and policy roles within the organisation, and has been involved in the development of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan since the project’s inception. Prior to this, he has worked in transport planning at both Stockport and Somerset councils.

Tim Anderson has worked for Energy Saving Trust since 2007 and is Group Head of Transport leading on all transport work. Prior to this, he worked in management roles in the automotive sector including daily rental and managing fleets. Tim is leading the fight against the climate emergency and poor air quality and has been involved in numerous government funded programmes and commercial projects in the sustainable transport sector. Now in a senior leadership position, Tim has a wide network of contacts and has successfully developed new partnerships to deliver greater impact in decarbonising transport and delivering clean air.