The Unobvious Ones is a month-to-month take a look at movers and shakers who fly under the radar within the Canadian auto trade.

STEPHANIE RAMEY

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION FROM AUTOMAKER TO DEALER

Mercedes-Benz Canada understands the significance of vendor relations. On the firm’s Toronto head workplace, Stephanie Ramey is the hyperlink: She’s the nationwide supervisor of community improvement and buyer expertise.

“My duties are the general vendor community construction and technique, which incorporates vendor profitability, monetary statements, amenities, the shopper expertise survey and the enterprise content material for nationwide vendor conferences,” Ramey mentioned.

She additionally manages buy-sell transactions, when shops can be found on the market, and evaluates the potential vendor companions.

The 42-year-old “loves fixing issues” so she majored in psychology in college. She joined Chrysler Canada in her native Windsor, Ont., in 2003, within the buyer relations name centre. Two years later she was promoted to district gross sales supervisor within the Montreal workplace after which Atlantic Canada, calling on sellers in her territories.

“Having that retail expertise helped me in my present position,” she mentioned. “I make the reference to sellers and perceive the challenges they’ve and the fact of their day-to-day.”

Ramey took a voluntary buyout that Chrysler provided in the course of the monetary disaster and in 2009 utilized to Mercedes-Benz. She was employed because the enterprise improvement centre supervisor for the company shops the automaker had on the time however has since offered. Ramey moved into human assets earlier than beginning her present job in 2021. She now leads a seven-person staff.

“Most of my world is conferences, however I take vendor calls and make plenty of vendor visits throughout Canada,” Ramey mentioned. “As a lot as we have now a historical past as an automaker, all of our vendor companions have an identical historical past constructing their very own companies.

“It’s a continuing dialogue to ensure we have now clear priorities and that our objectives are achievable. You need to select the best precedence and deal with that.”

PATRICK DANIELSON

PASSION AND PRACTICALITY DRIVE VEHICLE PLANNING

Foreseeing the way forward for the auto trade has by no means been straightforward, and it’s more durable now as electrical automobiles (EVs) enter the combination. However Patrick Danielson, director of product planning for Volkswagen Canada in Ajax, Ont., seems ahead to the problem.

“It’s one of the vital fascinating instances in auto historical past to be a product planner, as a result of we’re at some extent the place EVs are not a sideshow,” he mentioned. “We all know individuals need them, however we will’t transition by snapping our fingers. It’s going to be tough maintaining internal-combustion automobiles round whereas having EVs. You’re funding two portfolios, with all these challenges.”

Volkswagen Canada has a staff of 4 product managers, every chargeable for a portion of the automobile lineup. Danielson heads up the staff and is “tasked with strategic integration for the entire group.” On a brand new automobile, that may embrace outlining its options to the advertising and marketing division, getting equipment created for it, or working with the gross sales division to develop financing based mostly on the meant clients’ revenue ranges.

Danielson, 35, earned a level in enterprise administration however at all times meant to indulge his love of vehicles.

“I gravitated extra towards the company facet than dealership as a result of I needed to be nearer to that time of origin.”

He started in customer support at Hyundai Canada in 2009, then moved to public relations and to product planning.

Danielson, a fan of Volkswagen vehicles, joined the automaker in his present place in 2019. He credit his success to understanding the steadiness of product and client.

“You could be a passionate auto fanatic, however in the event you don’t have enterprise sense, you gained’t make the appropriate choice. However in the event you’re solely about enterprise, you’ll miss the fervour [customers] have. There’s nothing extra rewarding than seeing one thing you labored on go from an thought on paper to a bodily object in your neighbour’s driveway.”