‘You have to drive your competitive advantage’: Alison Jones of Stellantis

theguardian.com:

After talking for about an hour about the car industry and her three years at the top of Stellantis in the UK, Alison Jones realises she hasn’t mentioned the small matter of the giant merger between Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler that created the company.

“Yeah, we did that as well last year. I forgot,” she says with a burst of laughter, sitting in the boardroom at one of Stellantis’s technical centres in Coventry.

It shows just how much she and other car company bosses in the UK have had on their plate. There was Brexit taking up much of 2019, she says, a pandemic in 2020, and unprecedented shortages of key computer chips in 2021, all of which should really have been decade-defining issues.

Yet when people look back at what the 2020s meant for the car industry, the transition to electric vehicles will probably be seen as the dominant trend.

“This is our way of being now,” says Jones. “You’re constantly looking to adapt to the next change, find your competitive advantage, and drive your competitive advantage.”

The Stellantis office in Coventry (it still bears the PSA logo high up on its exterior) is airy and pleasant on a sunny afternoon, but it is also nearly empty, a reminder of the other changes the pandemic has wrought.

Age 53

Family Married to Nic, three adult children in their early 20s: two have recently finished university, and the third is doing a placement year before a final year of studies.

Education A-Levels atWootton upper school, Bedfordshire, then evening classes for accountancy qualifications and a degree equivalent at the Chartered Management Institute.

Pay “I’m not going to answer that!” Stellantis declined to identify which subsidiary employs her.

Last holiday Antigua, in the Caribbean, with the family to celebrate