The Right People

The Board

Mr. Tomohiko Masuta

SRI Senior Executive Officer

Mr. Tomohiko Masuta has been part of SRI group since 1985 & has served as General Manager of Sales Department since 2010. Mr Masuta serves as Senior Executive Office at Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd. and served as its Executive Officer.

Duncan Wilkes

Vice Chairman

Duncan joined Micheldever in December 2013. Previously he has worked as Chairman of Andrew Page one of the UKs largest distributors of parts to independent garages, prior to this he led a Management Buy In of Nationwide Autocentres in 2006 continuing as CEO after the business was acquired by Halfords in 2010. His role before this was as Group Managing Director responsible for all business to business activities at the RAC.

Jon Cowles

Chief Executive Officer

Jon joined Micheldever in 2007 as Acquisitions Director and became Group Finance Director in April 2012 before taking on the role of group COO in 2019 and now CEO in May 2020. Prior to joining the tyre industry Jon spent 10 years working in the Corporate Finance sector, working on M&A transactions in both the private and public equity markets in the UK and overseas.

Will Goring

Chief Financial Officer

Will joined Micheldever in January 2020. Prior to this he was Group Financial Controller at Gama Aviation plc, the AIM listed business aviation services company and before that worked in a variety of group and operational roles at the FTSE 100 engineering group, Halma plc, including Chief Accountant and Finance Director of the Elevator Safety Division. Will also worked at Just-Eat, the online takeaway company in its pre-IPO growth-phase, which he joined after completing his training as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte LLP.

Stan Watson

Retail Director

Stan joined Micheldever Group as a Regional Director for Protyre in 2018. In the past 5 years, and predominantly as Retail Operations Director he has driven the growth of the Protyre network to 184 centres and has spear headed the strong growth in the mechanical and servicing product offerings in Retail. In January 2023 he took over the helm of the Retail business, Protyre Autocare, as Retail Director.

Stan has been in retail for 30 years and in the automotive, fastfit industry for 10 years.

Prior to joining the Micheldever Group he held senior positions at Halfords and built a wealth of experience in retail in the electronics and leisure industries.

Dave Haddock

Logistics Director

Dave started his career in Logistics as a Wincanton graduate trainee straight from university and has held a number of senior management roles with Tibbett & Britten, Homebase, Iceland and B&Q. As the Director of Logistics getting each of the 6 million tyres handled each year to the right place, first time in the most efficient way possible drives the Logistics strategy on a daily basis.

Graham Mitchell

Wholesale Director

In a 17- year career in the tyre industry, Graham has acquired extensive experience across both UK and European markets. Graham joined Micheldever in 2019 from Cooper Tire, where he held senior management roles that included sales director for UK and Western Europe and UK and Northern Europe sales director.

Angus Smith

Commercial Director

Angus joined Micheldever in January 2012 and re-structured the Purchasing, Pricing functions and introduced a heavy onus on Business Development. He previously spent 23 years at Continental Tyres, in various management roles ultimately as Sales Director for the UK and ROI over the latter 10 years, where he took them from being ranked 4th to market leader in that period.

Aly Baxter

HR Director

Aly has acquired HR & Leadership experience across both the UK and European markets. Having joined Micheldever in May 2018 moving from the position of Talent Director from within the Automotive sector Aly has reshaped the HR Service and started to implement a group wide People Agenda. Being FCIPD qualified and having over 25 years of HR experience Aly enjoys shaping and developing HR teams & Services to partner with the business to deliver what's required.

Simon Carter

Group Marketing Director

Simon joined Micheldever Group In March 2023 as Group Marketing Director. Simon’s career has spanned a range of industry sectors – from Financial Services to Technology, from Utilities to Telecoms, and from the Holiday sector to Education – and this is his first venture into the automotive industry. This experience gives him unique insight and an opportunity to apply ideas from these other sectors to keep Micheldever – and Protyre in particular – stay ahead of the competition.

Having worked with a number of large brands as they have evolved both their retail presence and their e-commerce capabilities (and everything in between) – Simon is keen to use the success of the recent Protyre Autocare rebranding, repositioning and personality evolution in May 2023, alongside the website re-platforming at the same time, to establish the Group as the number one destination for customers for all of their vehicle needs. His task is simply to build greater awareness of the brand, confirm customers understand what is special about our products and service, and then ensure that the customer journey from consideration to purchase (and re-purchase) is an easy one.