Former Rolls Royce Bentley man brought in to beef up Sertec management team

AUTOMOTIVE sector manufacturer Sertec Group has announced changes to its top management team following the news last week that it had agreed a new £20m funding deal with Lloyds Bank.

Coleshill-headquartered Sertec, one of Jaguar Land Rover’s major supplier partners, says it has now completed the first phase of restructuring at director and senior management level.

John Harland joins the firm’s board as group operations director. He will oversee Sertec’s five Birmingham sites and the tooling facility in China.

He brings with him a wealth of experience having spent ten years at Nissan before joining Rolls Royce Bentley where he held the position of operations manager.

He then joined Stadco to run its Tipton and Castle Bromwich plants but soon found himself heading up a new project in Ulyanovsk, Russia. A further role near St Petersburg was ultimately taken over by Gestamp, with whom he stayed to complete the handover of the new plant.

A move to Richard Fritz, based near Stuttgart, saw him running four plants across Europe as European operations sirector, manufacturing glass encapsulation for Audi, Porsche and Daimler Benz among others.

Harland returned to the UK in 2013 and most recently worked for the Rical Group.

Sertec has also announced the internal promotion of Ben Higgins to the role of operations director (designate) at Sertec Birmingham, with his predecessor Joe O’Shea moving on to pastures new with Exol Lubricants.

Higgins cut his teeth at Sertec in the purchasing department as group commodity buyer and subsequently moved into logistics in 2010.

Becoming logistics manager, he managed the expansion of the operation into a dedicated hub close to the main Birmingham factory.

He was appointed operations manager in 2012 and a year later general manager of Sertec Birmingham.

Meanwhile, Dave Steggles adds the mantle of group deputy managing director to his role as commercial director at Sertec.