Kia Hotseat Reopens When COO Exits the Building
Kia Motors America is looking for a new number two behind Sean Yoon, president and CEO of Kia Motors America, because as reported by Automotive News, COO Bill Peffer quit one week into the job.
Sources within Kia said a successor to Peffer has not yet been appointed after his resignation last week. There was no indication where Peffer may be headed, and Kia has not hinted who may be taking his place.
Peffer joined Kia Motors America in July 2017 as vice president of sales operations, according to his profile on LinkedIn. Peffer characterized himself as an accomplished automotive sales and marketing executive with 27 years of wholesale and retail automotive sales, marketing, advertising, financial operations, transaction price management, product development, and overseas national sales experience with both domestic and foreign OEMs. He went on to say he possesses a global perspective of brand marketing and product lifecycle management. An experienced senior leader with the ability to assemble and motivate high-performance organizations and work teams, Peffer has demonstrated his financial and communications acumen in retail and at other automakers.
On January 1, 2021, Peffer started as Kia’s COO, a move the company made along with elevating Russell Wager to vice president of marketing. Wager had been director of marketing operations at Kia since July 2019, and prior to that was vice president of marketing at Mazda North American Operations. According to our source, Kia said the promotions were made to stimulate growth and foster a team-building atmosphere, internally and with their network of suppliers.
Peffer had been president and COO of Balise Motor Sales, a dealership group based in West Springfield, Massachusetts, for nearly three years prior to joining Kia. Before joining Balise, Peffer served as Cadillac’s head of sales and service for a year, and as managing director and CEO of Nissan Australia Pty. Ltd., among other posts in nearly eight years with Nissan Motor Corporation.
Where Peffer will resurface is anyone’s guess, although there is speculation that he may be headed to another automaker based in Southern California.
[Images: Kia]
With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.
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Found one guy that doesn't like the new logo.
Kia has notoriously bad relations with its dealers. Here in Los Angeles I bought a Kia from a dealership who told me that they hated being a Kia franchise, not because of the product, but because of how difficult the parent company was. They closed a few months after I had bought the car. Then Galpin motors opened up a Kia dealership here and Galpin is a huge and very successful company, within a year the closed as well, same reasons. It's a shame because while I really like the product, Kia dealerships tend to be low rent and the salesforce very creepy.