Member Article

North East Automotive Alliance appoints new team

The North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA) has appointed a new four strong team to accelerate its work supporting and growing the region’s automotive industry.

The Alliance, which opened for business from its Sunderland headquarters in March, is the North East’s first industry-led cluster group of automotive businesses. It comprises of members ranging from major companies such as Nissan, Nifco, Komatsu, Sevcon and Hyperdrive to sole traders.

The four new recruits are Eddie Leng, who has been appointed as project manager, Stuart McGivern who will lead on business excellence, Laura Gage has been recruited as PR and marketing manager, and Deborah Fletcher has joined as office manager.

Eddie Leng, who helped set up the North East Productivity Alliance and previously worked for the sector skills council SEMTA, will be spearheading business development. He will be using contacts build up during decades in the automotive industry to grow the NEAA’s membership base.

He said: “My role will be helping to establish the Alliance to make it the membership group of choice and I’ll work to set up a cluster that is recognised worldwide, with all the benefits that can bring to automotive industry in the North East.”

Stuart McGivern spent 15 years working in procurement for Nissan, following work with One North East and he ran his own business Key Performance Innovations before joining the Alliance as project manager for business excellence.

He said: “I will be concentrating on improving capabilities and competitiveness, and carrying out benchmarking on key performance indicators. In the short term, we will be trying to establish what best practice looks like for the large automotive companies such as Nissan and the tier one component suppliers, and how it can be shared.

“I want to see the North East as the first choice for automotive for anyone coming to the UK.”

Laura Gage, a marketing and communications specialist with a background in business-to-business marketing and the oil and gas sector, will oversee NEAA’s PR and marketing, while Deborah Fletcher is the organisation’s new office manager.

NEAA chief executive, Paul Butler, said: “Now we have our team in place, we can really concentrate on growing the North East automotive sector.

“We have appointed a strong team, with decades’ of experience in the industry, which will be able to hit the ground running and roll out projects ranging from bench-marking to improving competiveness and facilitating collaboration.”

The Alliance’s first project is the £290k SME Supply Chain Development Programme, which will work with 20 businesses to match them to opportunities, offer chances for collaboration, provide consultancy services and benchmark their performance.