John Howett To Head Lexus In Europe

As from April 3, John Howett will head Lexus Division at Toyota Motor Europe Marketing and Engineering (TMME) in Brussels. In this position as Director Lexus Brand, Sales & Marketing, he will be responsible for all sales and marketing activities for Lexus in Europe. These responsibilities come in addition to his duties as Director of Marketing for the Toyota brand at TMME.

“This additional responsibility will be very challenging for John, but we feel confident that he will successfully use his extensive experience to build and strengthen the Lexus brand image,” said Mr. Akira Imai, President and Chief Executive Officer of TMME.

John Howett (47) has an engineering background. He started his career at Toyota in 1975 in the after sales department of Toyota Great-Britain (TGB). In 1978 he joined Toyota Team Europe (TTE, Toyota’s motor sports partner) in Belgium and later in Germany as team co-ordinator and workshop manager. In 1981 he returned to TGB where he held management positions in different after sales disciplines such as service, parts and customer relations. When in 1991 Toyota’s European Headquarters became operational, John Howett was given the responsibility to set up the TMME after sales department. In 1997 he was named Director of Marketing, putting him in charge of all marketing activities for the Toyota brand in Europe. John Howett is British, married and father of two daughters.

“Lexus has been one of the fastest growing brands in Europe over the last couple of years. Since 1997, we have managed to more than double our sales every year. In 1999 Lexus sales in Europe totalled more than 16,300 units,” says John Howett. “Also last year, we introduced the very successful IS200 and later this year we will continue our ambitious product programme by launching another three new Lexus models.”

John Howett succeeds to Javier Contijoch who decided to pursue his professional career outside the automotive industry in his home country Spain.

ENDS