Aftermarket Professional of The Year Juan Carlos Martín
What a great honour it is to receive such a prestigious award, especially if you consider that the voters - the ADI Summit audience - are all professionals, each and every one with a reputable track record in the Aftermarket themselves!
My sincere gratitude goes to all Suppliers and ADI Partners for this recognition, and to the members of AD Parts in Spain and the whole AD International family for their unwavering support during my career at AD.
My Aftermarket journey started at Monroe in 1991, in the region where I was born and raised: Bilbao. I am grateful to Tenneco (now DRiV) since this is where the seeds for my later aftermarket career were planted. Tenneco offered excellent training opportunities, and little by little I became familiar with the “posventa” (the IAM, independent aftermarket). My responsibilities at Tenneco brought me to the heart of Catalunya, Barcelona, where I have built my life and still live with my family.
My next move, 8 years later, brought me to Remy, a reman specialist for starters and alternators that unfortunately meanwhile disappeared from the market. At Remy I was in charge for Spain and Portugal during 5 years, and later could extend my field of action to southern Europe (France, Spain, Portugal and Maghreb), adding an international dimension to my young aftermarket career.
During one of the worst crises the world had ever seen, in 2008, I moved to a technology leader in the automotive sector, Valeo. Being at an industry leader in challenging times like this, was all the more exciting, learning to seek and achieve progress and growth despite market situations that were not at all favourable.
Finally, in 2011, I found my true vocation at AD Parts, joining a man who had already led the 27 AD Parts distributors to a leading position in the Spanish market and among the top 5 Partners in ADI, Josep Bosch.
Receiving this Aftermarket Professional of the Year Award today is just as much a credit to Josep, the AD Parts Team and our “socios” who gave me the opportunity to do what I am doing today: continuously seeking the best possible ways to lead AD Parts on their path to success and continued leadership, together with a great team of professionals in our Gerona headquarters. Today I am proud to say that AD Parts has reached a sell-out volume of more than 1 billion euro in the aftermarket in Spain and Portugal!
My position at AD Parts gave me also the chance to play a high level role in the preservation of the interests of the aftermarket as VP at Ancera, our National Distributors’ Association, and indirectly in our European Federation Figiefa that is striving everyday for a level playing field for independent distributors.
Today’s recognition during the ADI Summit is the perfect motivation to continue my journey, as a member of this great ADI family that I appreciate so much, and as a member of the ADI Board, always in a spirit of co-operation, with ADI Partners to be as efficient as possible in supporting independent installers, and with ADI suppliers to provide us with the best possible service to satisfy the demand of our customers!
Technology, climate, economic and geopolitical instability, those are the main threats we face today, but it is my firm belief that through co-operating, we - parts producers, distributors and installers – will be able to fulfil our common mission: driving mobility!