With a major announcement this week, one of the dominant players in the Australian truck market is making a change at the top with Andrew Hadjikakou moving on and a new Paccar boss announced.
The new Managing Director, Damian Smethurst, will officially take charge on Monday May 8. Damian has been with Paccar Australia for 25 years and has held leadership positions of increasing responsibility including Director of Operations, Chief Engineer, and most recently General Manager Paccar Parts Australia, where he has led the parts organisation to consecutive years of record levels of customer support and parts availability.
Damian succeeds outgoing Managing Director, Andrew Hadjikakou, who is reported to be leaving to begin the next phase of his life outside of Paccar and also the road transport industry.
When the announcement was made, Damian acknowledged the great work and vision of his predecessor, “Andrew has worked tirelessly throughout his eight years leading Paccar Australia. He has championed many critical initiatives including our recent $50M factory expansion and leaves the business in excellent shape.
“I am honoured to have been entrusted with leading this amazing business. My focus is firmly on the people, our staff, our dealers, and suppliers, who make this organisation what it is, and on our customers, who are the reason for our existence. I am excited about supporting and empowering our teams, to foster a culture of operational excellence and innovation, and strengthening our relationships with customers across Australia and New Zealand.”
In the world of truck manufacturing, the MD lives or dies by the annual sales figures and ‘Hadj’ certainly delivered on that score. When he took the helm, Kenworth were selling a market leading 2,000 trucks plus a year, and DAF were a much smaller percentage of the market, with around 300 annually. In his last full year, the numbers were 3,003 for Kenworth and 700 for DAF.
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