Michael Cole, managing director of Kia Motors (UK) has been appointed to the role of chief operating officer at Kia Motors Europe, based in Frankfurt, Germany, from 19 November.
Cole has been at Kia in the UK since August 2009 and has led the wholly-owned subsidiary to record sales – the company broke its existing sales record from 2010 during October, when it reached a total for the year so far of 57,736 vehicles, and is expected to achieve a sales total in excess of 65,000 units this year.
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The former Toyota executive will lead the further growth of the Kia brand throughout Europe alongside president Brandon Yea and takes up the role relinquished by Paul Philpott who returned to the UK operation in July this year as the first non-Korean president of any Kia subsidiary in Europe.
In the new role Cole will be responsible for all of Kia’s pan-European operations including sales, marketing and aftersales as well as managing relations with the company’s manufacturing facility in Zilina, Slovakia.
Cole joined Kia after 15 years with Toyota where was most recently UK sales director.
He also spent 10 years with the Ford dealer network.
