Speakers

James Bellini is a leading futurologist and author with a considerable reputation as a thought-provoking speaker and moderator at top-level management conferences and business schools around the world. James has spent more than twenty-five years as a respected TV broadcaster, presenting The Money Programme, Tonight and Panorama.

After an early academic career in defence and military strategy, James was invited to become the first British member of the Hudson Institute - the renowned US think tank. He subsequently became Head of Political Studies at the Institute’s European division in Paris.

James also spent three years as editor and presenter of Financial Times Television, before moving to Sky News. Among his many award-winning TV programmes he scripted and narrated the 12-part series, The Nuclear Age.

Nigel heads the automotive team at Grant Thornton and has specialised in this sector for some twelve years. Nigel is based in London, but operates internationally with substantial involvement on assignments in Europe and the US.

He joined Grant Thornton as a partner in 1998. Nigel also has involvement with some motorcycle franchises which has given him invaluable practical experience of franchise retailing as well as a difference perspective on business life.

Keith has worked for Barclays for over 30 years holding a variety of senior positions within the Commercial Bank. He currently leads Barclays Motor Retail team which provides relationship banking and financial support to over a third of the UK’s top 200 motor retailers.

Keith manages a portfolio of motor retail customers and is also responsible for developing Barclays’ proposition for the sector.

Keith and his team are actively involved in financing dealership expansion and development for a number of their dealer customers and have been directly involved in a number of high profile transactions within the sector in recent years.

Paul is responsible for running the Automotive Practice of Grant Thornton, and is based in Milton Keynes and London.

He is primarily responsible for our merger and acquisition activity within the sector, and also specialises in strategic planning for retailers facing a changing business environment and risk analysis.

Paul was made partner in 2004 and is well known in the industry for presenting at numerous seminars and conferences.

John O’Hanlon, 39, was appointed Chief Executive of Ridgeway Group in January 2008. John had previously fulfilled a number of roles for the Group including Financial Controller, Financial Director and Volkswagen Brand Director.

As Chief Executive, John has full responsibility for all strategic and operational activities of the business working closely with the Group’s Chairman, David Newman. John has been integral to the growth of the business from its beginnings as a two site dealer to a £300m 17 site Motor Group placed in the AM100 top thirty.

John’s background prior to joining Ridgeway was as a Motor Retail Manager with Grant Thornton, with whom he had qualified as Chartered Accountant. John managed a portfolio of motor retailers and undertook numerous specialist projects including business planning, due diligence, internal audits and profitability and control reviews.

Colin Bruder is managing director of Network Automotive Management, which provides people and programmes, consultancy and support services to motor manufacturers, franchise dealers and vehicle rental companies.

He has a wide-ranging background including almost two decades in various roles with Procter and Gamble, a 10-year spell as managing director of Guinness in Germany, and experience with Mars Limited and Smiths Food Group.

In the motor industry, he was national sales director at Renault UK from 1981-1986, and was sales and marketing director for electronic vehicle tagging, automatic number plate recognition and telematics specialist, Police 5.

He has also worked with Network's sister company, Forester Grant, setting up operations in Germany and Spain.

Jeff Smith is regarded by many as one of the world’s top business improvement strategists. He is particularly well known for his ability to convey complex information into jargon-busting, plain English that everyone understands. 

As well as travelling the world as a one of the Motor Industry’s top Trainers and Consultants, in 1999 Jeff became a founder member of the Professional Speakers Association of Europe, he’s appeared many times as a Motor Industry expert on Sky Television and he’s also the author of The KPI Book, “the ultimate guide to understanding the key performance indicators of your business”, which is the world-wide #1 best-seller in the Motor Industry.

Jeff’s 2nd publication, “How To Make More Profit With Your Service Department” sold out within the first 7 days of being printed and has also achieved world-wide acclaim.

Jeff’s career spans more than 25 years within the Motor Industry with most of his experience gained within franchised dealerships. He’s expanded his career by becoming a Consultant to the Motor Industry and over the last 10 years he's worked with many car, truck and bike manufacturers around the world helping them to develop and implement profit improvement programmes for their dealer networks.

Jeff is the Managing Director of Insight Training & Development Limited which is based in central England where he runs his business with a team of associates who specialise in the Motor Industry. He’s in very high demand to speak at universities, forums and business conferences all over the world.

A professional within the automotive field with experience in a variety of positions gained over thirty years in the sector. Andy began his career with an apprenticeship at a Ford dealership followed by after-sales positions at both Rover and Renault franchised dealerships. In 1987 he joined Halfords and their ‘garage revolution’ as the company began to build its chain of car service centres aligned to their retail superstores. Andy worked as a service centre manager, a store manager and in the training and development department. In 1991 he joined IM Group as an area manager for the Hyundai car franchise. He worked with the brand for just over ten years during which time the annual registrations grew from just over 7,000 to 30,000. Also during this time Lex Service became the sole importer. In 2001 Andy joined Customs & Excise as a consultant in the Automotive Sector. A new role that was established to enable greater focus on the commercial awareness and knowledge in the department. In 2005 HM Revenue & Customs was formed and Andy is now part of a wider Trade Sector Adviser team where there is an adviser, appointed from the private sector, to cover each of the major sectors of businesses community. This unique role is department wide and can lead to involvement any tax regime or disciplines.

In 1976 John Madejski founded Hurst Publishing, which launched the first AutoTrader magazine in the UK, in the Thames Valley region. Just 20 years later having rolled out the concept across the country and abroad into South Africa and Western Europe he sold his dominant stake in the business to venture capitalists, BC Partners.

Adding value to the business at the time of sale he had sought out a key team of executives and business partners to seize the opportunities of changes in the marketplace. This included a broadening of the traditional published products to capture niche markets through Top Marques, Bike Trader and many more. Most important of all the initial investment was made in establishing the AutoTrader website, seeing even then the way this technology would affect traditional medium.

In 1990 he became Chairman of Reading FC, at the time close to receivership and in need of a new ground, with a team floundering in Division 3 (League 2 today). In 2006 Reading FC joined the Premiership, playing in the Madejski Stadium a state of the art 24,000 all seat facility, and declared a multi million pound profit to end of the last financial year. A fabulous example of team spirit, quite literally, driven from the top.

Away from the UK following the sale of the AutoTrader business in 1998, John Madejski saw the opportunity to replicate the model in his new home market of Malaysia. Today the publications and website of Malaysian Motor Trader spread across the Far East taking in Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and Hong Kong. Capitalising on past experience to ‘open’ a new market.

Amongst many other investments and business ranging from hotels to property he has recently acquired the controlling stake in lotsof.net a B2B website in the UK, offering an application which brings franchised dealers and lease companies together on-line to buy and sell unregistered and pre-registered cars and LCV stock. Intuitively seeing a niche, and one that offers opportunity to users either in a rising or slowing market.

Worked for AutoTrader (latterly Trader Media Group) for 20 years, leaving in early 2006, from the position of Managing Director, UK Publishing.

Started in 1986 in sales at Midland AutoTrader, becoming MD of that business in 1989.

Wrote business plan and then went on to launch Top Marques magazine in 1994.
Did the same with Bike Trader in 1996, and worked on acquisition of Truck Trader and its subsequent relaunch in 1997/8.

Group Director from 1999, and heavily involved with “web-publishing strategy” for the new millennium.

Worked on development of pan-european boat website ‘euroboats.com,’ with other international publishers in early 2000’s (now no longer part of TMG involvement).

After Trader Media:

Looked at various projects, mostly abroad, for a number of Venture Capital business.
Got involved with Due Diligence on a number of UK publishing acquisition trails for investment banks.

Got a phone call “out of the blue” from ex-boss John Madejski in August, 2007 to have a look at one of his recent investments; this being lotsof.net

Took on role of MD from January 2008, to run the business ‘day to day.’