{"id":12122,"date":"2013-12-20T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.autotrade.ie\/?p=12122"},"modified":"2013-12-20T13:03:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T12:03:03","slug":"willis-takes-over-as-md-at-volkswagen-group-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autotrade.ie\/index.php\/willis-takes-over-as-md-at-volkswagen-group-uk\/12122","title":{"rendered":"Willis takes over as MD at Volkswagen Group UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Willis, former Managing Director for Volkswagen Group Ireland, is to take over as Managing Director of Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Ltd from 1 February 2014. He is replacing Paul Willcox who leaves the company with immediate effect, to take up an appointment as Chairman for Nissan&#8217;s Europe region.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-12128\" alt=\"Paul_Willis\" src=\"http:\/\/www.autotrade.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Paul_Willis.jpg\" width=\"137\" height=\"171\" \/>Willis headed up the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand between February 2000 and 2008. Since then he has worked as Managing Director for Volkswagen Group Ireland, while his most recent role, which he has held since June 2011, was as Chief Operating Officer, Sales and Marketing, for Skoda China. Before joining Volkswagen in 2000, Willis had gained a wealth of automotive industry experience, having worked for BMW, Mazda, Toyota and Ford.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on his new appointment, Willis said: \u2018I\u2019m delighted to be returning to the Volkswagen Group in the UK. The Group is going from strength to strength and now holds close to a 20 per cent share of the UK car market.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile the appointment of Paul Wilcox is part of senior management and organisational changes designed to further strengthen operations in Europe and globally. Willcox will report to Trevor Mann, Nissan global Chief Performance Officer. Paul&#8217;s start date will be announced in due course.<\/p>\n<p>Trevor Mann commented: &#8220;I am delighted about Paul&#8217;s appointment. With his deep knowledge of Nissan and strong leadership, I am confident that Paul will succeed in achieving our European performance objectives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wilcox spent four years at Peugeot GB at the start of this career. He joined Nissan GB in 1992 and has held numerous management positions and eventually Marketing Director Nissan GB. He was appointed Vice President Marketing for Nissan Europe in 2005. After three years he returned to Nissan Motor Great Britain as Managing Director. In 2011 he took up the position of Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing for Nissan Europe, a position he left in September this year to join Volkswagen Group UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Willis, former Managing Director for Volkswagen Group Ireland, is to take over as Managing Director of Volkswagen Group United Kingdom Ltd from 1 February<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aftermarket","category-news","cat-7-id","cat-1-id","has_thumb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Willis takes over as MD at Volkswagen Group UK - 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