And our number one is...
Which exec takes the 2017 crown? All is revealed...
A LITTLE over three years ago, Linda Jackson was running Citroen’s UK sales operation, living in Coventry and sitting at number 39 in the Auto Express Brit List.
Then she had a phone call; a call that would transform her world. It was from PSA chairman Carlos Tavares, and he asked her if she would move to Paris to run Citroen. Not Citroen France, but the whole Citroen brand.
Tavares could see what the past three years have proven – Jackson is a formidable operator who, as well as having her own world transformed, has done precisely that as CEO of the famous French brand.
That’s why Linda Jackson sits at number one in the Auto Express Brit List in 2017 and was inducted into the Auto Express Hall of Fame at last week’s Auto Express Awards.
“The first time I met Carlos was in February 2014, when he came to do a review of the UK business,” Jackson tells us as we sit down with her in Paris. “I presented my review and strategy, and the following month he phoned me to see how things were going.
“Then in April, he rang me again asking how the month was going. And it was then that he said: ‘I’d like you to come across and see me.’ That was all he said.”
Arriving in Paris at PSA HQ, Jackson was asked to see the HR director. “This is getting worse!” she recalls thinking. “Then the HR director asked if I liked travelling. I knew we were creating regions, and I thought I was going to be given Outer Mongolia or something!
“Then I went in to see Carlos, and he said: ‘I’d like you to run the Citroen brand.’ It took me literally 20 seconds and I said ‘Yes’. I really wanted to do the job.”
Learning
A few weeks later, Jackson was in place as CEO of Citroen. “From day one you have to be on form,” she tells us. “But I had to learn a lot when I started – the learning curve was enormous. For the first six months, as well as remembering everything including the technical things, you have to learn all the vocabulary and codenames that everyone uses.”
While Jackson had plenty to pick up on the technical side, her experience of marketing and customer requirements immediately paid dividends – as we’re now seeing with Citroen Advanced Comfort, a Jackson mantra of “providing a stress-free travel environment, simplifying life on-board, offering seamless use and providing a sense of inner calm”.
“When you ask customers what they always remember about Citroen, they often refer to that superb ride,” she says. “That’s something we’ll be creating again with new technology on our new cars. But for us it’s so much more than that, too.”
As with so many motor industry execs, Jackson stumbled into the auto world. A trained dancer, she’d planned to go to university to study history and become a teacher.
“I hadn’t from the age of three decided that I wanted to go into the automotive industry, to
be honest,” she tells us. “I had taken my A-levels and was going to go to university, but I asked my uncle who was working at Jaguar if he could find me a summer job. I ended up matching invoices in the accounts department. By the second week, I was allowed to staple them together!
“I was working at Jaguar in Browns Lane, where I was shown what was happening throughout the company, from the draughtsmen all the way to the production line, and I was hooked. I decided to stay and earn some money rather than go to university.”
Later in her career Jackson did go to university to complete an MBA, but before then she worked her way up through the accounting departments at Jaguar. “I started as an analyst, then became a manager and moved my way up through the organisation for the first 10 years,” she says.
“My career really began to take off when I was persuaded by my finance director at the time to take my MBA.” By that time she was working for Rover, and shortly after she was offered the chance to go to France to take on the role of finance director of MG Rover and Land Rover.
After a short spell back in the UK, she was asked to return to France to run MG Rover when it was part of BMW. She explains: “I was there from 2000-2004, before I came back to be European finance director. Then, in October 2004, I was asked if I’d like to join Citroen in the UK as finance director.”
Jackson first stepped over the Citroen threshold in January 2005, and spent the first nine months acclimatising herself to the organisation in Paris. She’d done A-level French and holidayed in France every year since, but living and working there helped develop her language skills.
These were further honed in 2009 when she became finance director of Citroen in France, before she returned to the UK as managing director in 2010. She stayed in that role until 2014 and that phone call from Carlos Tavares.
Jackson now lives 24km outside of Paris. “I get the best of both worlds,” she tells us. “I live outside and come in
to town by train or car. And I try to come into town at weekends once a month – I’ve got a list of things I want to do and places to visit. Strangely enough, I have a lot of visitors now I’m living near Paris – I didn’t have that so much when I lived in Coventry!”
When she’s not in Paris or spending time at her place in Normandy, Jackson will be travelling – just as the HR director had warned – visiting Citroen’s numerous markets and talking to the national sales companies and dealers. And it’s in Shanghai, China, where we next catch up with her on the day after the international motor show, where she’d presented the new C5 Aircross to an eager crowd, including executives from PSA’S Chinese joint venture Dongfeng Peugeot-citroen.
We join Jackson at the Citroen Design Centre on the outskirts of Shanghai. Two of her most trusted lieutenants are Xavier Peugeot, director of product planning, and design director Alexandre Malval. It’s Malval who introduces Linda to the team of 10 designers working for Citroen in Shanghai, and immediately gets into discussions about the various trim options on future designs his team is working on.
Jackson describes Malval as “my teacher – I’m learning lots about design”. However, Malval’s view on working with Jackson shows precisely why the brand is having so much success with a fresh and innovative approach to design: teamwork. “We have great trust between us,” he says. “It’s a mindset that I haven’t always had in the past within a company.”
Seeing the two spark off one another is fascinating, with Jackson making it clear that they don’t always agree. “We had a discussion about colours on a new car,” she tells us. “Alex will choose the colours to make the car look the best and most modern, while I’m thinking about the dealers and selling, what would look the best on forecourts around the world.”
After a discussion with one of Malval’s design team on different thread and leather combinations, Jackson moves on to a full-scale design buck and interior of the C5 Aircross, where she looks at different options and perceived quality. Then it’s off again to a board meeting with Carlos Tavares and execs from PSA’S Chinese partner Dongfeng. Once back in Paris, it’s off to Russia, Paris again, then eventually back to Shanghai.
Yet before Jackson goes, we grab a chance to discuss what’s made the past three years so memorable for our number one Brit. “My biggest achievement so far is to have a clear strategy about product, services and how we come to market,” she explains.
“However, my biggest satisfaction is the product that’s now coming out; the fact that we’ve really taken the essence of what a Citroen now means and we’ve used the past to create it – we’ve taken a modern, international approach. And we’ve seen an increase in volume – what we’ve created is actually working.”
With cars such as the C4 Cactus, the C3, the recently revealed C3 Aircross and the forthcoming C5 Aircross, Jackson’s vision for Citroen is fresh, innovative and very exciting – and you can’t say that about too many automotive manufacturers these days.
She leaves us with the words that make us as excited about Citroen’s future as she is: “I still have some more things to show you that you haven’t seen – you just wait…”
“Jackson says she’s learning lots from Malval about design, and seeing them spark off one another is fascinating”