Dameon Grove has been appointed general manager of Iveco Retail, the Iveco-owned dealer group in the South East.
Grove brings nearly 30 years of commercial vehicle industry expertise to the new role. He started his career as a commercial vehicle technician and began his apprenticeship in 1990. He moved to Iveco main dealer Peter Brown Commercials four years later, before the business was acquired by Polar Trucks and later Stormont Truck & Van – where Grove served as workshop foreman. Between 2005 and 2015 he was employed by independent Scania dealer TruckEast, initially as service manager, before being promoted to depot manager and then regional general manager.
Prior to joining Iveco Retail he was employed at Ryder as location manager for its Oldbury depot.
Commenting on his new role, Grove said: “I was approached with the opportunity to head up Iveco Retail and I jumped at the chance. My passion has always been within dealerships, and it was clear to me very quickly that Iveco Retail had huge potential to grow.”
The business has full-service locations in Croydon, Farnborough, Hayes and Reading, and Grove plans to spend his first six months splitting his time equally between the four sites, with longer-term plans to base himself from Hayes by the end of 2019 to maximise all prospects for the site, including taking full advantage of its prime position close to Heathrow airport.
“There’s a wealth of vans and trucks operating into and out of Heathrow around the clock, and given the airport’s desire to reduce its environmental impact, that means there is a major opportunity for Iveco,” he added. “We’ve got a big site and there are no local restrictions on opening times, so we have room to look at expanding what we are doing from a sales and aftersales perspective.”
