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John Stone

Regional Operations Director, West

Regional Operations Director, West

John started his career at Hendy, and is now back, running the family-owned company’s western operations. He covers the area from Southampton, west to Poole in Dorset, including large conurbations such as Salisbury and Bournemouth.

 

Hendy has always prided itself as a local retail group, proudly South Coast. The new regional operations model makes the focus even more localised.

 

‘Big dealer groups can be faceless,’ says John. ‘Hard working colleagues often don’t know their managers. You lose that local family business mentality. Hendy never lost that. But this change to a regional model is an attempt to make Hendy feel and operate even more like a local family business.

 

‘It allows management to concentrate on individual dealers, to help with their own issues in their own areas. Silos within dealerships are also removed. The dealership teams will work together more closely. All the component parts of a single dealership will now be managed overall by a single person.’

As Regional Operations Director for the west, John oversees 20 dealers. He spends much of his time visiting them, face to face. His key role is to support dealers.


John was born and brought up in Portsmouth, right in the centre of Hendy’s South Coast footprint. ‘I saw an ad for a Hendy job, when the Ford Focus came out. I had been working briefly at HSBC, but sitting behind a desk all day in an office wasn’t for me. I liked cars and liked fast Fords, including owning a Fiesta XR2.’


He joined as a sales executive, selling used cars. ‘I liked the fact that I wasn’t behind a desk all day, I met lots of interesting people, and the pay was performance related.’ John stayed at Hendy for five years, before moving to a Mercedes dealer, and then onto HR Owen, where he ended up running its Bentley operations, including the flagship Jack Barclay dealership in Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London. ‘I even had a Royal warrant in my name.’


Immediately before rejoining Hendy, John was JLR Franchise Director for Lookers.

‘I knew and liked the Hendy culture, I knew a lot of people from when I first worked for Hendy who were still here, and I thought there were plenty of growth opportunities. I still live near Portsmouth, so I also liked the location.’

Like a lot of Hendy executives, John is a local who likes to work for a proudly local company.