Andrew Kirby, Senior Vice President – Sales and Marketing at Toyota SA, has been selected for a major international appointment at Toyota Motor Corporation in Nagoya, Japan. Kirby, who joined Toyota SA from BMW SA six years ago, will take up his new position in January. The responsibilities of the new position have not been announced officially but it is reputedly involved with global planning and marketing for Lexus. Kirby’s position at Toyota SA will be filled by Calvyn Hamman, a 25-year veteran of the Toyota family, who has been employed at the Toyota distributor in Dubai since 1999.
Michael Lester has been appointed General Manager: Exports and Frank Okoisor has been appointed General Manager: Export Operations at Toyota SA.
Paul Gerrard has been appointed the first Procurement Director at Goodyear. A graduate from the University of Natal, Paul has extensive local and international experience in the field of procurement, including spending much of his career at General Motors SA, where he was Manager: Direct Material Purchasing and Purchasing Planning Management.
Edward Makwana has been appointed Manager: Group Automotive Communications at BMW SA, where takes over from Benedict Maaga, who has moved to SA Breweries. Edward joined BMW SA from the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) where he was Project Director: Communication. Prior to joining SAICA, he was a Media Specialist at Mercedes-Benz South Africa where he worked on brands such as Mitsubishi Motors, Freightliner, Mitsubishi FUSO and various corporate communications activities.
Caroline Thomas has been appointed Product Communications Manager at General Motors SA. Thomas joins the communications team after a three-year stint in the company’s Planning Department where she was responsible for product planning. She began her career at GMSA as a graduate-in-training in the Finance Department in 1999 after the completion of a B.Com degree at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
Nissan South Africa has appointed Musa Mkhwanazi as its group human resources (HR) director. Mkhwanazi, the company’s first black HR director, is responsible for equipping the automotive manufacturer with the necessary capability and capacity to meet immediate and future targets. This is especially crucial as Nissan SA prepares to ramp up production from 44 000 units in this financial year to 50 000 per annum by 2013, in line with the incentive quota demanded by the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP).
Nissan also recently appointed Sagree Chetty, the former head of legal services at Transnet Port Terminals, as its group legal adviser and company secretary, with effect from October 1.
