UK boss Maria Grazia Davino has been sent to troubleshoot a big group of complex and diverse brands with their own way of doing things. Mark Tisshaw hears her plan
PHOTOGRAPHY JACK HARRISON
Few jobs in the automotive industry are tougher than running Stellantis in the UK, a classic case of a role with lots of power but very little glory. Incorporated in 2021 following the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the PSA Group (the latter at the time having only recently merged with Opel-Vauxhall), Stellantis turned to Maria Grazia Davino in September last year to try to bring together these still quite disparate brands from all areas of the market and different countries, each with challenges of their own.
Davino, formerly Stellantis’s head of sales and marketing for Europe, made headlines soon after walking into the firm’s UK headquarters in Coventry by stating publicly that it was facing “major operational issues” – typically related to logistics problems, the dealer network and integrating such disparate back-end invoicing, banking and aftersales systems from different companies – and has since been on the front foot trying to solve them.
She quickly embarked on a one-week tour of the dealer network from northern Scotland to southern England and visited more than 60 businesses to hear about these problems first hand. They were a disgruntled bunch that placed Stellantis brands en masse towards the bottom of the most recent National Franchised Dealers Association’s dealer attitudes survey. The evening of our visit in January, she was off to Ireland for another leg of the dealer tour and, like a great rock and roll band, will keep touring indefinitely for a constant “reality check”.
The first such check has already been delivered, and off the back of these initial visits, Davino took the unusual step of offering a public apology, through Car Dealer Magazine, to dealers for the way they had been treated. Dealers had told the publication the extent of the problems that existed under previous management. These ranged from customers having to pay for and insure new cars while they were still stuck in ports, to dealers not being paid their bonuses.
“Being direct saves time and we need speed,” says Davino, a considered speaker who is careful with her words and thoughtful with her answers. “When I apologise, I do it by believing what I’m saying but it has to last the moment and you move on. You cannot put yourself in a position where you are always guilty o
