Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has announced the appointment of Fintan Knight as Director of Sales and Marketing. He replaces Jolyon Nash who has decided to leave Rolls-Royce at the end of June to pursue interests outside the company.

Knight began his career in the automotive industry with BMW Australia and joins Rolls-Royce Motor Cars after more than 20 years working for premium and luxury automotive brands in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including Automobili Lamborghini, Audi and Infiniti.

During his 15 years with Audi AG, he served in a number of senior executive roles including Managing Director of Audi Ireland and General Manager, Audi Asia and Pacific, where he gained experience in marketing, network development and aftersales management in a number of important Asia Pacific markets such as Japan, Australia, Singapore, Korea and Taiwan. Fintan has also worked extensively in automotive retail markets in Europe and South Africa.

Knight, a British national, was born in Ireland and brought up in Australia. He holds an Honours degree in economics from University of Western Australia. He speaks English and German.

Speaking from the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood in West Sussex, CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös said, “We are delighted to welcome Fintan Knight to the Rolls-Royce family. His considerable experience provides him with the perfect base to further build and expand on the successes achieved by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars over the past decade. Our brand’s global footprint has expanded dramatically over the past few years and the time has come to consolidate and build further business growth on the back of this expansion. Fintan is uniquely positioned to lead our sales and marketing team on this journey.”

Müller-Ötvös continued, “We are grateful to Jolyon Nash for the substantial, positive contribution he has made to our business over the past five years. We wish him well in his new endeavours.”

Knight will assume his new role on 1 June 2014. He will be based at the Home of Rolls-Royce at Goodwood in West Sussex.