Paulo Alves has been appointed Managing Director of BMW Group Ireland effective from 1 May 2014. He succeeds John Ives who will take over the role of General Manager, BMW Group Academy UK, which is located in Wokefield Park, Berkshire.

Mr Alves is a Chartered Engineer and joined the BMW Group in 1997. He spent the first 10 years in engineering delivering projects including Range Rover, MINI Hatch and MINI Convertible. Paulo joined BMW UK in May 2007 and has had a number of different roles including Market Intelligence Planning and Strategy Manager before taking up his current role in BMW Marketing as General Manager, Marketing Communications, in August 2010.

Commenting on the appointment, Tim Abbott, Managing Director, BMW (UK) said: “Paulo’s wide experience makes him the ideal successor to John Ives, as we continue to see the economic situation in Ireland improve and the market recover. Both BMW and MINI are well placed to take advantage of this improvement with a host of new models and the introduction of innovative financial packages.”

Paulo Alves added: “I am excited by the potential I see ahead in Ireland. I wish to grow BMW, MINI and Motorrad’s success by expanding the range of models, introducing further improvements in customer service levels and pioneering Aftersales programmes. I look forward to working with the BMW and MINI dealer network to continue to grow our success story in Ireland.”