Fleet Assist has promoted Vincent St Claire to the post of managing director as the business seeks to strengthen its management team to support future growth.

Sharing responsibility for the long-term strategic development of the business with fellow board members and co-founders Mike Smith and Simon English, St Claire, who joined Fleet Assist as commercial director more than three years ago, assumes responsibility for the day-to-day running of the business.

Further strengthening of Fleet Assist’s senior management team comes in the form of the promotion of Jonathan Smith to chief information officer and Brigitte Deacon to head of finance.

St Claire has worked in the fleet industry for more than 30 years and previously held roles within the AA, easyCar (International) and (UK) Ltd, and fleet management company Arval.

He said: “The Fleet Assist business is growing rapidly as we aim to help our customers - contract hire and leasing companies - further reduce their maintenance and back office costs by using our nationwide managed network of service outlets, analysing where savings can be made and then implementing a wide variety of projects.

“Additionally, Fleet Assist has a number of exciting new products and services in the pipeline that will benefit customers and the senior management team anticipates bringing them to fruition in the coming months.

“Fleet Assist currently delivers a wide range of services to almost 30 of the UK’s major contract hire and leasing companies and we anticipate that number increasing further in 2017.”

Fleet Assist was launched by Mr Smith and Mr English in 2003 and has expanded into the UK’s leading supply chain management specialist, delivering a wide range of services to major contract hire and leasing companies collectively operating more than 790,000 vehicles.

At the company’s core is a managed network of more than 5,000 service outlets providing nationwide coverage to vehicle contract hire and leasing companies.

Smith and English said it was the right time to take a step back from their day-to-day roles.

Smith, who will be 60 later this year, said: “We would both like to free up a little time, so we have decided to take a step backwards and relinquish the day-to-day running of the business to younger colleagues, who will lead the business on to the next stage of its development.”