Here come the clichés – “Everything old is
new again” – “What goes around, comes around” – “Haven’t I seen you here
before?”
From 1999-2005 Adrian Hallmark was Bentley
Motors’ Member of the Board for Sales and Marketing. He and I joined the
company in the same week, and I remember sitting down to a very pleasant dinner
with him at Rookery Hall near Crewe, and getting to know him.
Adrian was joining Bentley Motors from
Porsche Cars GB, where he had been Managing Director. After he left Bentley
Motors in 2005 he went on to run VW’s operations in the USA until 2008; then
became head of Volkswagen China, before moving briefly to Sweden to run SAAB in
2009 – which was already a basket case.
He was saved from ignominy when a
headhunter for Tata Group approached him to join Jaguar Land Rover in 2010 as
Jaguar’s Global Brand Director.
In 2013 he was appointed JLR’s Global Strategy Director.
In 2013 he was appointed JLR’s Global Strategy Director.
Adrian takes up his new post at Bentley Motors in Crewe on
February 1, 2018 following the retirement of the much-admired Wolfgang
Durheimer, and will inherit the full title of Chairman and CEO.
He is a fully-seasoned automotive executive
with impeccable credentials to lead Bentley Motors. His palette of management
experience in the upper echelons of the car business means he is fully-equipped
to lead the British carmaker at a crucial time for the company.
Following the very successful launch of the
latest Continental GT coupe, the company, which has sold more than 10,000 cars
annually over the past four years, and over the last five and a half years made
profits consecutively of around €100 million p.a. employs more than 4000
people.
However, as the automotive world is turning
a deepening shade of ‘green’ the future for ultra-fast, ultra-luxury and
ultra-expensive cars could be facing a fast-approaching horizon, and will
require adept and adroit footwork to maintain sales and profits.
But I can tell you, from 18 years of
knowing the man, Adrian Hallmark is a great dancer. He is in varying parts
unsentimental, pragmatic, empathetic and totally professional. He is not the
sort of manager you cuddle up to, he’s not that romantic, but his guidance will
be straightforward, and his demands very direct and uncomplicated. He is a man
who knows what has to be done, and will achieve the ends by the necessary
means. He is unlikely to allow notions of passion and legend to unduly influence his
decisions.
That’s not to say he doesn’t have a human
side, because during the three years of Bentley Motors’ campaign to win the
Vingt Quatre Heures du Mans we had some grand times hosting journalists and
dealers in Le Mans, including a really enjoyable festival in the closed-off
streets of Arnage in 2002, hosted by the Mayor.
In 2003 Adrian was one of the drivers of a
Bentley Blower, during the parade of drivers around the Le Mans circuit.
I think Adrian Hallmark is an excellent
choice for the job, and he is the first Briton to hold the post, since the
disastrous reign of former Rolls-Royce engineer Tony Gott, who held the post
from 1998-2001. Working under the mercurial and erratic Gott, Adrian probably
observed many examples, both of how not to run a car company, and how to get on
with the German parent company.
Adrian Hallmark is a fluent German and
French speaker, a man of the world, and now has a plum job, for someone who
graduated in metallurgy and engineering from the University of Wolverhampton.
In addition he completed a Diploma of Management at Henley Management College.
In addition he completed a Diploma of Management at Henley Management College.
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Chris Craft |
No doubt Hallmark and Craft will find lots in common, but given that Hallmark clearly understands the task of marketing Bentleys, Chris Craft will be left in no doubt about what is expected of him.
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