Hyundai UK boss steps down

Hyundai UK boss Tony Whitehorn is stepping down from his role.

Whitehorn, officially Hyundai Motor UK’s president and CEO, joined Hyundai from Toyota in 2005, when the Korean firm was the UK’s 23rd best-selling brand, with just 28,000 cars sold.

Last year, Hyundai sold just over 93,000 cars and was the UK’s ninth best-selling brand, outselling the likes of Peugeot, Skoda, Seat, Honda, Citroen, and Fiat. 

Whitehorn, who was named an Outstanding UK Leader by Autocar at the 2016 Autocar Awards, has been one of the great innovators of the UK car market and car sales in the past decade. He helped propel his brand into the mainstream by taking full advantage of 2009’s scrappage scheme, which was designed to stimulate UK new car sales after the global financial crisis.

He also launched new showrooms in shopping centres in a break from the traditional car dealership, and has been an early innovator with selling cars online. That’s recently extended to the sale of Hyundai’s new Kona Electric, the initial batch of which have been sold only online and almost exclusively to buyers new to the brand. 

Whitehorn will step down at the end of the year, but will continue working with Hyundai into next year as an executive advisor in the transition to new management.