Golf trolley company Motocaddy has appointed former Dyson concept engineer Ian Gell to the newly created position of Director of Engineering & Technology in a move designed to further enhance its future product innovation.
“This appointment reflects our commitment to introduce the most innovative and reliable golf trolleys on the market and maintain the brand reputation for leading the way forward in the trolley sector,” said Motocaddy CEO John Helas. “Ian has a great track record for coming up with new concepts that have changed the face of fiercely competitive markets and providing consumers with the absolute best user experience and value.
“He joins us at a very exciting time for the brand, as we extend our focus on new technology beyond award-winning touchscreen GPS trolleys and the popular remote-control model towards Cellular connectivity and the benefits that it can bring to golfers in the near future.”
Gell, who specialised in creating conceptual designs during his time with Dyson, joins Motocaddy after six years at Aqualisa Products, where most recently he was Head of New Product Design for the leading producer of electric, smart and mixer showers. Previously, he was also Concept Designer at The London Taxi Company, where he formulated ideas for modern black cabs.
“I’m really excited at the prospect of building on the impressive progress made by Motocaddy in terms of new technology designed to help golfers enjoy their game,” said Ian, winner of an international Designer of the Year award in 2004. “I love applying my innovative problem-solving skills to support the vision behind new products and I can see scope for me to contribute to even more development in this area.”
In another move from the Stansted-based company, Oliver Churcher has been promoted to the role of Marketing Director, having served as Marketing Manager for the past decade.
“Marketing has played a key part in our growth in recent times and under Oliver’s leadership, we plan to significantly expand our team over the next 18 months to promote our products even more effectively on a global basis,” said Helas. “Marketing investment will be a vital part of what we’re planning as a global brand going forward and I look forward to working with him on some exciting new initiatives in the coming months.”
The expansion in the Motocaddy team comes on the back of a successful 2020, despite the troubles on a global pandemic. The company ended the year with a 15% increase in turnover on the previous year and pre-order sales are 140% up on the same period last year ahead of an exciting 2021.
Motocaddy has also been extremely proactive in helping partners and customers in receiving stock during the latest national lockdown. “We’ve enhanced our end of customer service, as we saw during the tough times last year that our customers needed help more than ever,” said Helas. “In doing so we have increased capacity within the customer service team, so phones and email queries can be answered quicker and we have worked closely with our customers to offer them flexible delivery initiatives such as shipping to their home or end-user’s address,” he added.
The brand has also expanded into the US market over the past 12 months having setup a new subsidiary with warehousing, office space and made a number of sales appointments, while also having recently opened a new, larger warehouse in Germany to meet growing demand and assist with changes brought about by Brexit.
“The investment in key international golfing markets is an important part of our ongoing company strategy as we look to reflect our position as a major global brand,” he added. “We also continue to focus heavily on the UK and Ireland to support continued growth within our domestic markets.”