VWFS accelerating towards digital future with double appointment to board of management 

We are pleased to announce the appointment of two of our colleagues to the Board of Management.

Dan James, Marketing Director and Chief Digital Officer, and Matt Solven, Risk and Controlling Director, officially joined the Board of Management (BoM) on 1st May 2021.

The appointment of Dan and Matt to the BoM is indicative of our continued commitment to preparing to be fit for the future and becoming a more digitally focused operation.

Dan James joined VWFS in 2007 and has held various commercial roles in the business. He has delivered a number of key initiatives for the organisation, including orchestrating the successful transition to our Commercial Product team approach, a critical step in enabling the business to deliver new products, services and innovation for consumers.

Dan will be responsible for managing our overall customer proposition and marketing approach, determining the future customer experience in a more digital business, as well as ensuring that digital transformation has a critical focus at board level.

Matt Solven started his career at VWFS as an undergraduate during his year in industry whilst studying for his Accounting and Finance degree.

On graduating, Matt returned to VWFS in 2005 and since then he has held various posts, including a three-year foreign assignment as Audi International Brand Manager and UK Sales Manager role based in the Audi factory in Ingolstadt. Matt returned to the UK in 2015 to take up a brand management role before becoming Business Performance Director in 2020.

Matt will oversee an enterprise-wide view of VWFS profitability and planning, resulting in greater efficiency, transparency and streamlining complex processes.

Mike Todd, CEO at VWFS, said: “I’m thrilled to be welcoming Dan and Matt to the Board of Management and I believe their appointment is a perfect endorsement of the way that our business develops talent and showcases the opportunity for people to progress within the organisation. It’s always a pleasure to see colleagues do well, and it’s a great testament to their hard work and dedication that Dan and Matt have been promoted to these very senior roles. It’s really important for us to focus on our future and to ensure that we are set up to achieve our strategic goals, which is why we have taken the opportunity to evaluate the current structure of the VWFS Board of Management. I’m really looking forward to working more closely with both colleagues as we continue our journey towards becoming a trend-setting digital operation that puts the customer at the heart of everything we do.”

Dan James, Marketing Director and Chief Digital Officer at VWFS, added: “I’m very happy to have been appointed to the Board of Management and I’d like to thank everyone at VWFS who has supported me throughout my career. What makes this company so special is that we really value the people we work with and the opportunity to promote colleagues within the organisation has become commonplace. Having been with the business since 2007, I’ve seen the company grow and evolve into the leading finance provider that we are today and I’m very positive about the road ahead for VWFS. This is a really proud moment for me personally, but it’s also a very exciting time to be a part of this business as we develop our people, products and digital capability so that we can continue to put our customers at the heart of our business and achieve our ambitious goals.”

Matt Solven, Risk and Controlling Director at VWFS, said: “I’m extremely proud to have been promoted to the Board of the company that I joined as an undergraduate more than 15 years ago. I’m not quite sure where that time has gone, but I know that it’s been a brilliant journey and one that I have thoroughly enjoyed. VWFS is brimming with so many talented people and I feel very lucky to have worked with lots of innovative, forward-thinking colleagues over the years. I can’t wait to get started with the next step of my VWFS journey as we start to establish ourselves as a business with a truly digital presence and I’m in no doubt that together we will achieve our strategic goals as a business.”