Style as clean and classic as a luxury automobile
Maria Moncada Alaoui turned love of cars into fast-paced career
The Mediterraneanblue BMW540i positioned prominently on the dealership floor is Maria Moncada Alaoui’s favorite.
She’ll tell you it is like no other ride, no other car. She means it — even if you have no plans to buy one.
Alaoui is die-hard car fan, which makes her job as general manager of BMW West dealership pretty sweet.
After working in the male-dominated world of cars for more than 20 years, she said resilience and tenacity are essential.
More than that, Alaoui is passionate about her job. She often works 12-hour days, six days a week, with Sundays off.
Alaoui is one of a handful of female general managers at car dealerships around the country. But the industry is shifting, she said.
“It’s rewarding to see the landscape of the car business change,” she said. “The majority of the (buying) decisions in the household are made by women. Now, I see more women joining the car business. I see women coming in to buy for themselves. I’m glad this world is opening up.”
Alaoui grew up around cars in Honduras. She picked up tidbits from her father and brother’s engine talk. Her dad taught her the basics — lessons like how to mark an air filter so that you can tell if a mechanic has changed it or not.
Born Maria del Pilar Africa Moncada Diaz Suffo, she is one of seven children. Her mother, who today lives in Sugar Land, is from Spain and her late father was from Honduras. Her grandfather was mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
“You name the country, and it’s in my family’s roots. I’m a mix of everything,” said Alaoui, who has been married for 15 years to Morocco native Omar Alaoui. They met at a dealership where she was in finance and he was in sales. She wouldn’t date him because they worked together. So he went to work at another dealership, then asked her out.
A natural leader, Alaoui always was the one to come up with childhood games and the rules for how they should be played. She liked bringing people together.
“In a big family, you have to be assertive or you’ll be left out,” she said.
When she was 7, Alaoui’s father moved the family to Louisiana briefly, then Houston, where he worked for the Consulate General of Honduras. The family remained here, and Alaoui graduated from Elsik High School.
Alaoui was studying business administration at the University of Houston when she took a job as a receptionist at a Chevrolet dealership to earn extra money. She soon was selling cars on the weekends.
She found joy in helping people find the right car. Her passion for selling cars trumped college, and Alaoui left to work at the dealership full time. She became the dealership’s finance manager and later the top sales manager in the nation.
She went on to become one of the country’s first female general managers at Porsche and Audi. She joined BMW as general manager in 2007.
“At the time, a female general manager was unheard of, but my parents never doubted me. They inspired me to not let anyone or anything deter me from my goal,” she said.
Today, Alaoui said she’s proud that her dealership has been awarded the Center of Excellence twice. It’s an honor bestowed on only 10 percent of the dealerships in the nation.
Much like the style of BMW, Alaoui’s own style is classic.
“When I first got into the car business, I wanted to look older, so I got into suits as fast as I could. I like the clean lines,” she said. You’ll likely find Alaoui at work wearing a structured jacket, pants from designers such as Valentino and Oscar de la Renta and heels, never flats.
“My mom gets upset with me because I don’t wear enough color. She’s always in the latest trends and the brightest colors, but I’m a classic. I like black.”
Top: Maria Moncada Alaoui is general manager of the BMW West dealership in Katy.