The Autocar Great Women: Rising Stars awards celebrate rising female stars in the automotive world, providing a great opportunity for future female leaders to be recognised.
This year saw seven outstanding Jardine Motors Group colleagues named as Rising Stars, with Natalie Wheeldon, Marketing Manager, crowned the category winner for Marketing. With more than 300 women nominated for the awards this year, this is an amazing achievement.
“I am very proud of all our colleagues who have been recognised in the Autocar Great Women: Rising Star awards,” says Clare Wright, Group HR Director. “These awards are essential as they highlight the important work done by women all over the sector and, in turn, showcase the range of exciting career opportunities available to women in automotive.
“Each of these inspiring individuals are making a difference to the sector and show huge potential to rise within the industry. I am looking forward to seeing how they continue to progress their careers and become influential leaders within their respective fields. Congratulations to you all.”
Read all about our colleagues recognised in the awards below:
Autocar Great Women: Rising Stars category winner
Natalie Wheeldon, Marketing Manager
Category - Marketing
Natalie Wheeldon has been crowned the category winner for Marketing in the Autocar Great Women: Rising Stars awards. Her 20-year career at Jardine Motors Group first began in sales admin and she has steadily risen within the company in various roles before moving into marketing, where she now works to improve the visibility of the group’s 14 Audi dealers. Natalie’s string of successes include boosting the dealers’ social media following from 4,500 in 2015 to 85,000 in 2020, and introducing an effective FCA financial advertising due-diligence process to improve advertising quality.
Autocar Great Women: Rising Stars category finalists
Elise Jeffery, Service Advisor at Mercedes-Benz of Southend
Category - Aftersales & Workshop
Elise’s competence and willingness to take on new roles means she’s the dealership’s go-to person for Mercedes’ Xentry diagnostic software, and she’s due to complete Mercedes’ sales training this year. She’s also overseen an improved relationship between sales and aftersales, which has resulted in vehicles being prepped to a higher standard and a quicker turnaround.
Kaitlin Baker, Trainee Service Advisor at Mercedes-Benz Lakeside
Category - Aftersales & Workshop
Kaitlin left the equestrian world to join Jardine Motors Group in November 2019 and has continued to impress. Kaitlin has been instrumental in improving the dealership's Customer Satisfaction Index scores and, when the business re-opened after the first wave of the pandemic, Kaitlin covered staff roles in every department when necessary.
Hayley Bunn, Aftersales Manager at Porsche Centre Colchester
Category - Aftersales & Workshop
Since Hayley joined the Porsche team in 2018, its service department has gone on to become one of the most successful in the Group. Throughout 2020, Hayley personally fielded all calls and emails from her dining table when the businesses were closed due to lockdown. Hayley has also just completed a professional course with Porsche where she is now one of 34 Certified Porsche Managers. This has helped expand her knowledge to other areas and will help fulfill her ambition to become a general manager.
Emilie Thompson, HR Business Partner
Category - People Development
As part of her role, Emilie oversees 800 people across the Jaguar Land Rover division and head office support functions. Recently, Emilie led a project to bring our valeting service in-house which involved project managing the recruitment and training of 114 new employees across 39 sites. She also proved invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic, impressing her team by improving the old system of recording the temperature of colleagues with an automated approach.
Deborah Parry, Used Car Sales Manager at Bolton Audi
Category - Sales
Deborah wowed with an impressive performance heading up used car sales at Bolton Audi last year, her first full year in the role. Her skills also extend to mentoring, recently guiding a newly employed sales executive to become one of the best performing at her dealership.
Ruby Winchester, Digital Sales Advisor at Mercedes-Benz of Lakeside
Category - Sales
Ruby has taken her role and expanded it to the point where she now single-handedly manages finance retentions, all sales enquiries and the manufacturer demonstrator portal. Ruby is now the third highest seller of service plans in the Mercedes-Benz division.
