Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS) has appointed former Nissan fleet director Iker Lazzari as its new sales director.

Lazzari will officially return to VWFS UK after a two-year absence spent as UK Fleet Director for Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK Ltd, commencing his new role on August 1.

He succeeds Dennis Foley who remains within VWFS UK in a senior capacity.

Simon Tattersfield, VWFS chief commercial officer said: “Iker joins us at an exciting time; VWFS UK has an ambitious customer agenda and Iker will play a key role in helping to deliver it with our dealer partners.”

Prior to joining Nissan, Lazzari had spent almost 20 years as a Volkswagen Group employee, holding a number of senior positions including market development manager, national contract hire and leasing manager for Volkswagen Passenger Cars and operational strategy manager for group fleet services.

In 2015 he moved to VWFS then newly-created role of head of sales and marketing to drive its market share in the corporate and SME fleet market.

At the time he was charged with building awareness of the company’s non-asset based products and services, including telematics and fleet management solutions, fuel cards and employee focused schemes, such as salary sacrifice for cars.