Grouptyre Adds to Sales and Marketing Team

Grouptyre has appointed Jason Clarke as sales director and Lucie Dalton as marketing and operations support manager. Jason Clarke will manage Grouptyre’s five-strong team of regional sales and national account managers and is also tasked with new business development. He is especially keen to explore initiatives with regional independents, dealership groups and national accounts.

Clarke has a Diploma in Business and Finance Studies and began his career in confectionery and garden equipment sales, but is a familiar tyre industry figure having spent the past 10 years with Cooper Avon Tyres. After joining Cooper Avon Tyres in 1998 as an area sales representative, he was promoted to regional sales manager for Wales and the Midlands and, following restructuring in 2006, took over as UK sales manager.

“I was looking to broaden my horizons and take on a bigger challenge and I’m certainly doing that by joining Grouptyre as it embarks on a growth strategy designed to establish the organisation as the key player in tyre distribution in the UK,” Clarke commented.

Lucie Dalton holds a BA honours degree in European Business Administration and has spent her entire career in the brand management and marketing of tyres. After joining Michelin’s graduate scheme in 1996, Dalton spent a year in Bristol working in customer services before moving into brand management at the company’s HQ.

After relocating to Stoke-on-Trent in 2000, Lucie worked for five years in Michelin’s trade marketing department, focussing primarily on the development and implementation of marketing programmes for the independent and wholesaler channels. Dalton left Michelin in 2005 and is now happy to be back in the tyre trade after a short career break to bring up her young family. She will be providing marketing operations support to Grouptyre’s director of commercial operations Karl Naylor.

Commenting on his decision to strengthen the management team, Grouptyre managing director Peter Harries said: “We will be spending the next two years undertaking a major restructuring of our core business operations as we establish Grouptyre as the UK’s number one tyre distributor, so I am delighted to have managers of Jason’s and Lucie’s calibre on board.”