David Hickman joins Scania Financial Services as the new Sales & Marketing Director.

He moves into the role vacated by Alan Rhodes, who was made Managing Director at the beginning of September 2018. However, David is no stranger to Scania. He brings with him 22 years of Scania GB experience to the finance role.

Most recently David was General Manager of Marketing but has also worked extensively in the service, service development and parts areas of the business.

"Identifying new opportunities outside the staple offering is what I want to see from Scania Financial Services in the future," explains David.

"In the past, our business has been quite traditional; but we can do things differently."

David has a history of introducing new products to assist owner/operators. The Scania Fuel Card is one such example: “The business wanted to help smaller operators in their expenditure on fuel acquisition; fuel cost can often mean the difference between making a profit or not,” he says.

Providing innovative funding support will be key to Scania Financial Services in the future, believes David.

"My view is that we provide financial solutions to meet our customers financing needs, and we will always develop the relationship, understanding their business implicitly and work closely with them to do that. If you're a customer and want to improve cash flow, we’ll try and help you do that. For example, releasing equity in a product to provide the finance for other products and to improve the scope of the business. This might be fork lift trucks, trailers, or agricultural equipment."

"While our core products remain the financing of trucks and coaches, I want to emphasise that we have a real appetite to help customers finance their assets, whatever they might be."

Away from the world of Scania, David (47), who completed the 2016 London Marathon, says he enjoys running with his partner Olivia, as well as Bikram Yoga - "it helps to clear the mind". He has four children one of whom now works at Scania - clearly Scania runs in the blood - and lists his other interests as rugby, holidays and eating out.

David commenced his new role in December 2018.