cinch appoints two new senior hires to drive further growth

cinch, the UK’s fastest-growing online used car marketplace, announces the appointment of Leanne Thames and Amy Townsend to the growing cinch team.

Leanne Thames joins the leadership team as Operations Director and brings considerable automotive industry experience. She was most recently at BMW as Head of Used Cars and Internal Sales and previously worked in the Insurance sector with RBS Insurance, Direct Line Group and esure.  Her experience and established network in the automotive sector will enable her to help drive cinch forward as she takes on responsibility for developing our customer proposition; building partnerships with dealers, OEMs and Leasing Companies, and boosting cinch’s Finance and Insurance offering.

Amy Townsend joins as Senior Marketing Director. Amy has extensive experience in building brands and leading marketing teams in high-growth digital, direct-to-consumer businesses. Amy has led marketing for Now TV, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and most recently for the Consumer division at ITV where she launched the SVOD service BritBox from the BBC and ITV. Amy takes responsibility for leading the growing Brand and Marketing team under the management of Robert Bridge, Chief Customer Officer.

Despite only launching eight months ago, cinch is now the largest online B2C marketplace for used cars in the UK and is currently generating annualised sales of over 50,000 vehicles. The business allows its c. 30 million unique visitors a year to part exchange their car and buy or finance quality-checked used cars fully online and have them delivered straight to their home.

Avril Palmer-Baunack, Chairman of Constellation Automotive Group, cinch owners, said: “We are delighted to have Leanne and Amy join the team. Leanne is hugely experienced and her industry knowledge will be vital as we look to further our rapid growth and consumer offering. Amy will be a great asset to the cinch team in driving the marketing team and its plans, to ensure our continuous success.”