Written by Guy Bird
Stellantis Group’s Maria Grazia Davino is not your typical UK automotive managing director. In a year that has wreaked havoc on auto sales and distribution, she has taken on one of the toughest jobs in the industry. Here, she explains what makes her different and how her turnaround can begin.
“I’m a logic expert. That’s my background,” says Stellantis UK MD Maria Grazia Davino. “My management style is to build strong bridges, bridges that don’t break.” The Italian, born in Scampia, a tough neighborhood in Naples, studied for a PhD in semiotics at the Bauhaus. He began his career in the automotive industry in his early 20s at Lamborghini’s headquarters in Sant’Agata, around the time the Murcielago was launched and the Gallardo was being planned. University in Weimar, Germany. She started as a product manager and then became her PA for Stephan Winkelmann, who is (and is) Lamborghini’s president and CEO. But she didn’t get her Ph.D., and she contracted “her car disease,” she confessed with a wry smile. While she worked for her brand of Italian luxury sports cars, she also took on roles in financial management and sales planning. “There I learned how cars are conceived, manufactured and sold, and learned from the best. That was my good fortune,” she remembers clearly fondly.
As an employee of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) since 2011, under the leadership of Sergio Marchionne, she started in planning, quickly moved to retail (in the Italian cities of Turin and Rome), and then with successive of CEO Country Management. It was then seen as a chaotic operation in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. “Before me, she had 12 managing directors in 10 years in Germany,” she says to explain her background. “But I spent four years in that role. What I mean is, it’s not because of my resume, I don’t really care or don’t want to disclose, but this is what my I like to say it’s a career. We worked hard and accomplished things. The success is due to our dealers and employees. And the problem is mine.”
As such, Davino is not your average economist or “good salesman” and is used to very different products, cultures, and management styles. She is also an outspoken interviewee and she is well aware that the emerging issues in the UK are big issues. The nine brands operating in the UK (Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati and Vauxhall) have very mixed results in 2023, with the NFDA dealer survey in summer 2023 also showing poor performance. This was the result. With these brands consistently in the bottom 10 (and Maserati dealer views not on the list), there’s a lot of work to be done. To be fair to Davino, she was not in charge at the time the troubles began when she took over, and after a month of following in the footsteps of her predecessor Paul Wilcox, who retired from the group, she was not in charge until September 2023. He officially took over the role on the 1st.
“The advantage is that the problem is clear,” she begins. “This is a privileged starting point because at least I know what to do. My network has a clear agenda. But first I need to respect our professionalism and solve the problem.” It’s talking about solving operational problems. It’s very specific. It’s about finding the right balance between traditional operations and new, simpler methods, and what can and should be improved. There are a lot of them. You can also learn from your competitors. Why?”
After some gentle pursuit, Davino discovered a variety of issues, ranging from the upheaval of the “transformation” of the Fiat dealer network over the past few years, which resulted in the loss of 36 dealers (from 115 to 79), to soaring sales prices. He pointed out specific problems. Her flagship 500 Electric model “suffered from pricing that was probably unacceptable to the market,” she admits. It’s currently on sale from £28,195, which includes his £3,000 Fiat e-Grant discount. The number of dealers by brand also significantly decreased from 921 to 748 at 464 locations across the Stellantis Group (as of November 2023). Compounding the group’s problems was the delay in starting production of the Alfa Romeo Tonale’s right-hand drive car, and the limited supply of Jeep products.
“So operational issues around marketing and in some cases availability impacted performance,” she admits. “What’s my reaction? Jules Tilstone, the new head of premium, is responsible for Alfa Romeo and DS, and we need to find the right product mix, but Alfa has a great reputation. , we need to build on that. As for DS, we need to find a suitable route to market because the products of this brand are not performing at the level they should be. To Jeep has Kris Cholmondeley, who focuses on smaller networks. Also, Fiat’s network has shrunk significantly, but is now expanding again with a new structure. They all need treatment. But they need treatment as much as I need to take care of Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën, who have developed new products to lead the way in Stellantis electrification. We have to make them all work. .”
All three of Stellantis’ top-performing passenger car brands had year-end sales increases in 2023 compared to 2022, certainly within the larger overall market. Vauxhall recorded 100,417 units (5.28% share, slightly up from 5.19% in 2022). Peugeot sold 62,401 units (up 3.28% from 3.24%) and Citroën sold 30,931 units (down 1.63% from 1.76%). All other Stellantis brands have less than 1% each, giving the group a total passenger car market share of 11.52%.
Stellantis’ brightest star has been the performance of its light commercial vehicle (LCV) product, supported by its strong all-electric van product. In the UK LCV market as a whole, Vauxhall sold 34,632 units, giving it a 9.9% share (of which around one-fifth were electric LCVs). Citroën was second in the group with 27,382 units (7.9%), and Peugeot was third with 26,066 units (7.47%). Combined with his 6,898 units (1.9%) of Fiat Professional, Stellantis’ total LCV share was a healthy 27.2%, with all brands posting healthy growth rates of double-digit points year-on-year.
Of course, as Davino claims, numbers aren’t everything when it comes to the more premium, off-road Stellantis brand. “Premium brands do not have the same market share relevance,” she says. “For Jeep, given a very bad year but a great product, my mission is to increase percentage and satisfaction and product sales. In this sense, each brand contributes in a different way and proportion. The mainstream brands are dedicated to one job, and the premium brands and Jeep are dedicated to another.”
However, the UK government’s new zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) directive, which comes into force this year, requires 22% of total sales by brand to be fully electric to avoid hefty fines. , some Stellantis brands are expected to follow suit. To do more heavy lifting than other people. “Stellantis is in a good position because we have a very large product base to work with, but we have to fight hard,” she says. “This is an equation with multiple solutions. Each brand may comply. If everything goes well, the sum is fine. Even if everything goes wrong, the market demand is what we can do, so [only] Even if you take a partial lead, you’ll likely need to engage with the brand after that. ”
What Davino is alluding to is allowing brands to overachieve PHEV and hybrid sales at lower emissions levels than each brand’s average vehicle CO2 level (which varies), and use it to offset This is a small part of the ZEV obligation that can be done. The shortfall in EV sales ratio is less than 22%. “When asking brands to meet their market share goals of being ZEV compliant, they need to leverage two levers: CO2 emissions and EV configuration. They need to strike the right balance between the two. We have to find out.” Commenting on this difficult topic, Stellantis’ Head of Communications adds: We do not purchase or defer credits. ”
To succeed in these objectives, Stellantis’ UK operations clearly need to develop more fruitful relationships with its network, but if the NFDA study is any guide, its network will need to reduce the number of dealers and It was partially severely damaged by its predecessor’s attempts to change the way it works. Practice. At the time of our interview with Motor Trader’s Davino in late November 2023, the revised plan was to first introduce a form of agency model at Alfa Romeo, DS, and LCV dealerships from July 2024. . But since then, she has decided to suspend any agency. To ensure fairer outcomes for everyone, we will implement the model in full until the end of 2026, with the involvement of her ICDP consultants as an independent third party. This is a big step back from what came before, but it’s because of her bridging management style, which is based on trust and transparency with remaining and still interested dealers, as she has publicly stated and mentioned above. It is supported.
She certainly doesn’t seem to be one to use business catchphrases for purpose. “These are not empty words,” she said firmly. “Transparency to me means ‘Being clear about your plans, what you ask of me, and what I can offer you.’ I love this transparency and the alignment of the planets. We work to achieve this because our dealers are important to me and we are important to them. You can’t buy trust. We need each other and we are interested in each other. , there is no time to waste. Therefore, once you recognize and share your position on things, all you can do is move on to get the job done. I also believe in personal relationships. Therefore, I travel around the UK I traveled there to not only understand the geography from an operational standpoint, but also to meet the people.”
The impression she got was positive. “It’s a very business-oriented culture here. You see this at all levels of the dealership, not just the owners, which you would expect, but from the general manager to the sales and after-sales teams. They’re very ‘ person” and performance-oriented. They like to compete and want to get better. ” Stellantis Group’s UK operations will end in her 2023, with total sales of passenger cars and LCVs taking her to 314,141 units, ranking her fourth within Europe. This is more than Spain (221,332), but less than Germany (390,476), Italy (595,028) and France (634,306). The UK therefore remains a clear European ‘top five’ player for global organizations and a country worthy of attention and care. At the “Investor Conference” in early January 2024, Mr. Davino gave an impassioned speech encouraging dealers and pledging that more positive results will continue as the relationship with dealers improves decisively. Are expected.
Davino says she likes to read when she has time to take a break from the heavy workload ahead. This now includes English books as well. “I’ve been interested in history and geopolitics for a long time, and this country is beautiful and incredibly interesting to me.” She also wrote about Ken Loach’s acclaimed social justice and realism film I profess my love for . However, there are limits. While she praises the strength and level of performance of English football, as well as its passionate fans, she says this is a “new reference point” compared to its Italian and German counterparts. Culturally, she says, she still has an obligation to remain a supporter of the SSC Napoli football club. . Perhaps her respect for her Italian background also explains the Alfa she currently chooses as her company car, her Romeo her Stelvio SUV, and her coveted classic car Lamborghini her Espada. There may be. Although she has never owned the latter, she once bought an East German Trabant.
All of this makes Davino an extraordinary person. It remains to be seen how that difference in thinking will affect the fortunes of Stellantis Group’s UK dealers, but her background, education and career suggest that she has a philosophical approach mixed with a commitment to fairness. There is no doubt that he has a steely determination to his character. For now, this could bode well for Stellantis dealers large and small. “All dealers are equal. If you were to investigate me, this is my approach,” she said softly. “If you respect business, you have to respect businesses of all sizes. Dealers who work in small villages are just as important to a brand as a group of dealers, because at the end of the day it’s the customer that matters. Do you think Fiat Panda customers are less relevant than Alfa Romeo Giulia? No, both are relevant. This is my approach.”