Unipart’s Managing Director, Design, Manufacturing and Engineering, Carol Rose Burke CBE, has been appointed to the Board of the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT), the leading trade association for the UK automotive industry. Her appointment is effective immediately.
Carol Rose Burke brings a unique, end-to-end view of the automotive supply chain to the SMMT board. Unipart’s distinct capabilities, spanning design, manufacture, transport, and logistics, provide an unparalleled operational insight, which is critical for helping global OEMs effectively navigate the accelerated transition from combustion engines to clean energy technology.
Since joining Unipart in 1994, Ms. Rose Burke has become a proud advocate of manufacturing and engineering and a leading exponent of the automotive sector’s transition to a carbon-free future, influencing key stakeholders through her roles on the board of the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and the West Midlands Regional Business Council.
Ms. Rose Burke will use this prominent national platform to further drive industry-wide change focused on strengthening UK supply chain resilience across the manufacturing sector.
Carol Rose Burke CBE, Unipart’s Managing Director, Design, Manufacturing and Engineering and SMMT board member said: “I am honoured to join the SMMT Board at this pivotal time. My appointment is an opportunity to use Unipart’s unique, end-to-end perspective to directly address the structural challenges facing our UK automotive supply chain.
“I will be championing clear, decisive action, focusing on several critical areas. We must urgently address the innovation-to-commercialisation gap and remove legacy policy costs to reduce prohibitively-high UK industrial electricity costs, if we are to attract the necessary large-scale private investment to support the industry’s electrification.
“Simultaneously, we need a renewed focus on proactively closing the national skills gap and reforming our system to better produce industry-ready graduates by integrating academic research with real manufacturing environments.
“And finally, we must advocate for targeted policy support for our existing UK supplier base to successfully navigate demand volatility and the accelerated EV transition with greater certainty.
“I look forward to working collaboratively with my fellow board members, industry peers and policy makers to champion this action-oriented agenda and ensure the UK manufacturing sector not only sustains itself, but thrives globally amidst accelerating change.”