Winners 2026

Sales - retail and suppliers 2026

Karen Prince is a key member of the senior team at dealer group Lookers, which counts itself as one of the top three in the UK. In her role, she oversees franchise operations for Renault, Nissan, Volkswagen, Seat, Skoda and Kia. Prince joined Lookers in 2014 as a franchise operations manager, moving to operations director in 2019 for Volkswagen, Skoda, Seat and Kia, and then to director of customer engagement in 2021. In that role, she led on all brand communications, marketing and PR activities as well as overseeing customer engagement and feedback. She has been in her current role since 2024.

Sales - retail and suppliers 2026 nominees

Elaine Cole, Vertu Motors

Elaine Cole joined Vertu – the dealer group that’s now a stand-alone brand after it retired the Bristol Street Motors and Macklin Motors entities – the year after its foundation in 2006. She started as purchasing director, before adding the title of commercial director in 2017. Drawing on 30 years of experience in retail, Cole is a key player in the continuing growth of Vertu, which has more than 200 dealers and is one the UK’s largest supplier of vehicles to the Motability fleet.

(Megan) Harvey, Keyloop

Harvey joined automotive retail digital specialist Keyloop in 2021 as chief alliances officer and focused a new division, started in 2022, to help accelerate digital transformation within large retail groups and car manufacturers. Known to everyone simply as Harvey, she moved to her current position in 2025, overseeing all of Keyloop’s teams and processes related to revenue. Before Keyloop, Harvey was Google’s head of alliances in EMEA after the US giant bought the Looker data analytics platform she had previously worked for in the same role. Prior to that, Harvey worked at Salesforce.

Sam Panayides, Cox Automotive

Sam Panayides sits on the leadership team of digital-focused automotive services giant Cox Automotive and is tasked with growing sales of its varied platforms along with the Manheim auction arm. She joined Cox in 2021 from Manheim, where she was commercial director for vehicle services, following five years as head of sales and marketing for Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. Coming from a dealership background, Panayides also spent a year as contract hire and leasing manager for the Fiat Group.