Senior management changes at Groupe Renault UK have seen Ford executive Paul Flanagan recruited as its new managing director.

And the company’s sales director Darren Payne has been promoted within the Renault-Nissan Alliance to a new role of sales director at Nissan Motor GB.

His replacement at Renault is Nick Tame (pictured below), currently sales operations manager, who’ll occupy the sales director role from May 1.

Flanagan said: “It’s a very exciting time to be joining Renault. I can see that tremendous growth has been achieved in the last three years and I’m sure that there will be more to come with the forthcoming launches this year of further great product with the all-new Mégane and all-new Scénic.”

Flanagan joins today from Ford Motor Company where he was most recently president of Ford France. In his 25 years at Ford, he has held multiple finance, sales and marketing roles, including setting up the Ford sales company in Romania in 2010, and MD of Ford Belgium and Luxemburg before heading Ford France from 2014.

He will report to his predecessor, Ken Ramirez, who was recently appointed senior vice-president of sales and marketing for Europe.

Payne had been with Renault for more than six years, initially as fleet and LCV director then sales director, and previously worked at GM UK in senior fleet and leasing roles.

Tame’s 22 year career at Group Renault UK has included roles of area manager, regional director, national fleet sales manager and franchising and dealer development manager.

Ramirez said: “I am delighted to welcome Paul Flanagan to the group and Nick Tame to his new role.

“I would like to personally thank Darren Payne for his achievements with the group and wish him further success with our alliance colleagues at Nissan. During Darren’s leadership, the Groupe Renault sales of the Renault and Dacia brands have accelerated from 2.4% to 4.4% group market share with one of the highest retail volume throughputs per dealership outlet amongst generalist brands.

“Whilst it’s sad to see him leave, I have no doubt that both Paul and Nick in their new roles will continue the GO5+ mid-term growth objectives for the group.”