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Aston Martin Hires Former Tesla Exec To Help Boost Global Sales

 
2 1,509 views Oct 13, 2009
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Aston Martin has announced the appointment of Michael van der Sande into the company’s newly created position of “Chief Commercial Officer”. The new recruit will be based at Aston Martin’s headquarters in Gaydon, in the UK, and will have to report directly to CEO Dr Ulrich Bez. Van der Sande will also be part of Aston Martin’s board of management.

Bez said van der Sande's broad experience on the global stage “will help us to further develop Aston Martin's presence around the world."

Van der Sande joins Aston Martin from Tesla Motors, but is perhaps more well-known for his twelve years with Harley Davidson, where he held a variety of senior roles in marketing, dealer development, product development and commercial operations. His most recent role was as the chief of the motorcycle company in Europe.

In his new role as Chief Commercial Officer Aston Martin, he will take responsibility for all commercial areas to further develop and strengthen these key areas of the business.

Van der Sande, aged 44, is a Dutch native and currently holds a racing license. Hopefully his passion for racing transfers into Aston Martin’s operations, both in the production and motorsport side of things.

The next couple of years are very important for Aston Martin as the company continues to execute an ambitious model roll-out during one of the worst periods in the entire history of the automotive industry. The global economic recession has made a dent on Aston Martin but the company is still planning three all-new models, as well as several important updates for its current range. Click here for more details about the trio of new models.





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Comments (2)

  1. fb_100000275684479 avatar Michael Escobar Posted: 10/14/2009 5:09pm PDT

    Hmm, he worked at H-D in a marketing position? "Coming soon to your A-M dealer: Aston Martin shirts, hats, jackets, gloves, mugs, shot glasses, watches, dart sets, piggy banks, 'Power Wheels', dice, thongs, bracelets, earrings, playing cards, teddy bears, and neckties" People lampoon Ferrari for their merchandising, but surely Harley takes the cake.
     
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  2. fb_100000275684479 avatar Michael Escobar Posted: 10/14/2009 5:30pm PDT

    In addition, this may be ONE of the worst periods in Automotive history, but I look at it this way; (referring to the US industry) we called GM, FoMoCo, and Chrysler the "big three", but in reality, that's only because they were what's left of the American auto industry. To put it in contrast, for the first quarter of the 20th century, there were probably hundreds of AMERICAN car companies, based in America, selling cars completely built in America, to the American citizens. The "Big Three" shouldn't be construed as the best we had to offer. Names such as Packard, Cord, Duesenberg, Auburn, DuPont, Pierce-Arrow, Cadillac and others built cars not only to rival, but dare I say superior products to the "established" upper crust of Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lancia, Alfa, Mercedes, Horch, Delage, et-al. If you've ever seen a Duesenberg SJ, a Cord 810, Auburn Boattail Speedster, or 1932 Packard Dietrich convertible, you'd know that the US auto industry today, and the rest of the world's is a joke compared to the 1920s. The Great Depression reduced those dozens of manufacturers to a number you could count on your hands, and the subsequent decades saw most of those disappear. This situation facing us is no depression, otherwise we'd have no car manufacturers at all.
     
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