Bob Lowden has left his position as managing director of Iveco UK after just six months in the role.
Lowden took over from previous UK boss, Claudio Zanframundo in November last year. Zanframundo himself had held the post since replacing Luca Sra in May 2013.
Iveco’s appointment of Lowden had seemed to represent a change of strategy for the brand by putting in place a candidate with more detailed knowledge of the domestic market.
Prior to heading up Iveco’s operation in South Africa for three years until 2014, Lowden had spent five years as the UK’s customer service director before which he was dealer network director for four years.
He had pledged to restructure the firm’s retail network to increase sales of Iveco’s 3.5t Daily van by up to 25% in 2015 through targeting smaller businesses on the high street to complement the brand’s major fleet deals with Tesco and Asda, but in the plate-change month of March volumes were down year-on-year by 5.6% to 356 units – although numbers were up by more than 20% in the first three months of the year to 761 units, according top the SMMT.
In 2014 Daily sales fell 15% but this was blamed on supply problems when switching from the old to the new generation model.
Iveco has now appointed Stuart Webster to head up its operations in the UK and Ireland. Webster had previously spent 18 months as marketing director CNH Industrial Financial Services.
CNH Industrial, which is itself owned by Fiat Industrial, is Iveco’s parent company.
Webster spent almost two years as regional director for Iveco Capital between 2012 and 2013, overseeing its financial activities in Benelux, France, Germany, the Nordics and the UK following six years as managing director of Iveco Capital in the UK.
Webster’s first role within the group was as country manager for CNH Capital, between 2000 and 2005, a position he was appointed to after eight years as a director of BNP Paribas Lease Group.
Iveco said Lowden “has left the organisation to pursue other activities”.
