Wayne Anthony Griffiths (Dukinfield, United Kingdom, 1966) has been appointed SEAT Executive Vice-President for Sales and Marketing with effect on 1 September 2016. Griffiths takes over from his predecessor Dr. Andreas Offermann (Opladen, Germany, 1956), who has been named new Member of the Board for Sales, Marketing and Aftersales at Bentley. SEAT’s new Vice-President for Sales and Marketing, who was the head of sales at AUDI AG in Germany, will report directly to SEAT Executive Committee President Luca de Meo. The son of a car dealer, Griffiths started working life in the family business prior to studying International Management and German in Leeds. The new Vice-President for Sales and Marketing had already worked at SEAT for two years, from 1991 to 1993.
SEAT President Luca de Meo commented “Our sales have grown by 25% since 2013 with Dr. Offermann in charge of the company’s Sales and Marketing division, and are maintaining a positive pace in 2016. I would like to thank him for his passion and commitment. Griffiths is going to head the Sales and Marketing area at a very exciting time for SEAT and the automotive industry. We have started the biggest product offensive in our history with the Ateca, and he is also set to tackle customers’ emerging needs in the fields of connectivity and mobility”.
Griffiths’ career has closely been linked to the Volkswagen Group. He began at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt in 1989. After his stint at SEAT he returned to Audi in 1993, where he held various senior functions in the newly established Marketing and Sales division, including sales management for the markets of Spain, Portugal and Greece at the company headquarters. Griffiths was subsequently appointed assistant to the Board Member for Marketing and Sales. From 1997 to 1998 he headed the International Retail Marketing department.
From 1998 onwards, Griffiths occupied a number of executive positions in the AUDI AG sales division, including responsibility for the Northern and Western Europe and Overseas sales regions. From 2005 to 2013 he was responsible for sales in the European export markets until he was appointed in February 2013 head of sales at AUDI AG in Germany. Under his management Audi became leader in the premium segment in both Europe and Germany.
Wayne Griffiths returns to SEAT at a time of company growth. SEAT deliveries increased by 0.2% in the first half of the year (total: 216,800 vehicles), and even prior to the positive effect of the Ateca, is growing for the fourth year in a row. The commercial success of the Leon (+8.2%) and the Alhambra (+23.7%) as well as markets such as Turkey (+69.6%), Sweden (+45.6%), Austria (17.7%) and Mexico (+6.6%) boosted the brand’s sales in the first six months of the year.
