Graham Wheeler, CEO, VWFS
- 27 years in the industry, starting as a sales executive with spells at GE Capital and Rover
- 20 years at VWFS. Became MD in 1995 before being appointed CEO.
- Graham is from Glasgow, Scotland, where he was educated at Glasgow University. he is married with one daughter
- Graham is a Rangers supporter
VWFS, the financial arm behind the Volkswagen Group, plans to increase its fleet size by 50% in three years.
Graham Wheeler, chief executive of Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS), said the current fleet was 100,000 .
“We set a plan five years ago to get to 150,000 fleet sales portfolio by 2018. We are slightly ahead of our planned growth.
“Why 150,000? It was an estimate at the time to get us into the top three leasing companies.”
Wheeler said 20% of its VWFS fleet was already multi-marque, but expected this to increase to 25% by 2018, while he thought SME dealer/broker introduced sales were nearing their plateau.
“Where we have work to do is in the medium to large sector,” said Graham. “We’re ready to make a big push in this sector – that’s the reason we’ve got Ian Tillbrook on board at VWFS.
“So our biggest expansion will be in this area. Currently we have a fleet of 24,000 in this sector. Our expectation is to double it.”
Wheeler said the key USPs of VWFS was the huge range of services and the fact that it can finance anything from an HGV to an electric car under one roof.