Thousands of parts, thousands of people, one Defender.

I'm Head of Process Chain for Vehicle Programmes at JLR. In plain terms: when a new Defender-family vehicle or model year is being developed, my job is to make sure it arrives on time, at the right quality and at the right cost — and that every function involved knows what it owes the programme and when.

The role runs from the first design phase to launch. I work closely with the engineering teams on vehicle strategy, design, development and launch targets, and I lead the cross-functional activity that turns those targets into a vehicle: Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, Finance, Purchasing and Supplier Quality all have a piece of it, and the process chain is what holds the pieces together.

Five teams sit under the role — safety, seating, cabin, doors and glass, and cockpit and climate — spread across the UK, Slovakia and Hungary. Alongside the engineering, I manage the prototype budget, tooling, design and development costs and part piece prices, and allocate budget to the functions against the programme's deliverables.

Before this I spent four years as Forward Model Programmes Quality Manager for Electrical Engineering, leading a global team across the UK, India and Germany on software, infotainment, driver-assistance and electrical-distribution quality, and before that I designed and rolled out JLR's electronic APQP system for the supplier base. In 2021 I was part of the team developing the hydrogen fuel-cell Defender prototype, which is where the two conference talks on quality management for EVs and hydrogen vehicles came from.