Joe Greenwell
Pro-Chancellor, distinguished friends, colleagues, graduands and guests. Coventry’s modern heritage is based on the manufacturing industry and the city continues to lead the way in the transport, particularly automotive, sector. With this in mind, it is very fitting that a former chairman of Ford UK and Jaguar Land Rover, and senior figure within the industry, is being recognised as an honorary doctor of technology.
A government advisor, chairman of the RAC Foundation and Automotive Investment Organisation from 2013 to 2015, Joe Greenwell is a significant player in the UK’s automotive industry and remains very influential in supporting and promoting manufacturing innovation across the sector.
Brought up in Waterlooville, Portsmouth, Joe was always very interested in sport, particularly cricket and football, and cars. Studying the pages of London Motor Show brochures while growing up, it is no surprise that, despite his father’s Royal Navy career, he chose to move into the automotive industry.
After graduating from the University of East Anglia in 1973 with a degree in English and American Literature, and an overdraft, Joe took a trainee position at in the industry that he would eventually lead.
In 1983 he took a job at Jaguar, a company that he remained with until 1999. While working for the company he was appointed to progressively more senior roles in Marketing, Sales, Operations and Public Affairs. During the nineties he was inspired by Jaguar Chairman and CEO, Nick Scheele, a position he would later hold himself.
In 1999 Joe was asked by Scheele to join him at the Ford Motor Company, so Joe moved to Ford and started a weekly commute from Birmingham to Cologne, before moving to the USA to take up the role of Vice President, Global Marketing and Operations at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Becoming a senior figure within the UK car industry in 2003 Joe took over the position of CEO and Chairman of Jaguar Land Rover. Here he introduced a restricting programme at Jaguar.
In 2009 Joe was appointed Chairman of Ford Britain and was involved in developing external relationships between the company and the government and other organisations. Alongside this, he was Presidents of the UK automotive industry’s trade organisation, The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
In 2011 his commitment to the motoring industry was further cemented as he received a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list.
In 2013 Joe retired, but was soon enticed back to the industry to lead the Automotive Investment Organisation to promote the UK’s motoring industry across the world and build more relationships with global manufacturers. With a target of increasing job retention and investment over three years, Joe agreed to the role, planning to step down when the three-year targets were reached. Two-and-a-half years into the project and the original targets were met, leading Joe to step aside and look for new challenges in January 2016.
Keen to keep in touch with developments across the automotive and aerospace industry, Joe is a member of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult Board, a non-executive director of Aperam, a global stainless steel company and he continues to chair the RAC Foundation.
He still owns the red E-type dinky car he had as a child, alongside the full-sized version he now drives, and despite a life-time working in the automotive sector, is demonstrating no signs of slowing down into retirement.
Closer to home, and here in Coventry, along with working in the city at the start of his career, Joe has connections to the NSPCC and has worked with local groups to raise money and encourage others to support the charity. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to Britain’s automotive industry, Coventry University, by decision of the Academic Board, has the privilege of conferring the Degree of Doctor of Technology, honoris causa, on Joe Greenwell.