Born in Ireland and raised in Scotland, Liam Donnelly has had a varied international career. As well as roles in the offshore, airport and food service industries, he also has 16 years’ experience within the leasing industry, which includes four years as sales director for Arval UK, followed by a further four years as managing director of Arval’s recently established Arval India operation.

In his latest role as head of International Business at Arval, Mr Donnelly is based in Paris, heading up Arval’s International Business Ofice (IBO) which, in his own words, forms part of the company’s move to “put a bit more focus on all of the international accounts that we currently manage”. While Mr Donnelly may be a new face to IBO, the department itself is irmly established and deals with international accounts from any of the 22 countries that

Arval operates in or where it has its alliance partners – which include PHH Arval in the US and Canada, Facileasing in Mexico, Sumitomo Mitsui Auto Service Company in Japan, Avis Fleet Services in Africa.

But IBO also serves an important role at a local level, as Mr Donnelly says. “If you think of the importance of IBO within Arval, IBO leases today roughly some 150,000 vehicles – and in terms of new vehicles every year, we represent something like 25% of all the new cars that are bought by Arval in a year,” he comments. “So this is the real hub – certainly from an international point of view.

“But the absolute focal part of the IBO business is driving a growth strategy within the local entities of Arval. We don’t sit here just thinking that we’re growing IBO – that’s taken as a read – but in growing IBO, because all of the cars are in the local entities, we support hugely the growth of the local entities. “We are here to grow international clients but in growing international clients we helpwith the development of the local entity.”Such local entities now include Braziland India – the latest two major markets to come on board – and will be joined by other markets.

Clearly the international credentials of Arval’s IBO team are very much assured – but the leasing giant’s marketplace offering is also underlined by the services and

skills it brings. Mr Donnelly says: “I think we bring real credibility in terms of the number of years we’ve been in the business – 20- plus years. And we bring some credibility by our parentage in terms of BNP Paribas.

We also absolutely have an edge in the marketplace in terms of the quality of our consulting team – as you go global, more and more of the clients want a single view of what is happening across the globe on their fleets and recently our Arval Analytics reporting tool received the ‘Industry Innovation Award’ for servicing this need.”

And Arval has also raised its service game even further of late. “To demonstrate the importance of our key strategic accounts, we’ve strengthened our dedicated teams this year and we have the absolute buy-in at senior level to maintaining our key accounts,” continues Mr Donnelly.

This move forms part of an ongoing focus to make sure that Arval concentrates on meeting the needs of its existing accounts as much as its new ones. Mr Donnelly says: “When we look at some of our international accounts, the fleet potential available for Arval to service presents an opportunity. As a business we should put equally as much effort into maintaining and growing our fleet in those clients whilst looking for new – and if you get that formula right then the business grows.”

And it’s this focus on comprehensively meeting its existing international customers’ needs in existing international markets – whilst also adding to these – that underpins Arval’s approach going forward.

“Our strategy for IBO is very simple,” concludes Mr Donnelly. “We have to hold on to every single one of our international accounts in a very competitive world. We have to find new international accounts to continue our growth. And I think we must ensure that we continue to deliver on the basic promises to the customers – if we can deliver that in each of the entities, then I think from a global perspective, that’s a new step forward.”