Barbara Cox Awards 2022 nominees: Caroline Burnell

Barbara Cox Awards 2022

Winner: Caroline Burnell

of eStar Mercedez-Benz Truck & Van

Brief biography of you and your career

I have been in the automotive industry ever since my first ‘work experience’ placement via school when I was 15. After college, I spent just under six years at a PR agency looking after Auto Trader and launching FordOnline.co.uk, as well as smaller B2B clients in the sector, before moving to Mercedes-Benz head office, where I spent the next 10 years. For them, I worked in the busy press offices of both commercial vehicles, and cars, before heading up the press office for Mercedes-Benz Vans UK, and expanding into internal communications, events, crisis management, and copywriting. I have then been almost a year in my current role as Head of Marketing & Communications at eStar Truck & Van, the newest Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle franchise in the North West. In my spare time, I am a volunteer for a crisis service, I knit and have set up a micro business selling dog snoods (yes, that is a thing!), and I also enjoy walking in beautiful North Wales with my beloved English Bulldog, Lenny.

Tell us what this nomination means to you?

To be amongst the company of such accomplished women is a true privilege. I would love to go back and tell my 20-year-old self that I was on the right path and not to doubt myself, ever. Celebrating the successes of ourselves and other women in the automotive sector at a time when equality is still not where it needs to be feels hugely special, and I am very honoured indeed.

What advice would you give to a woman considering a career in automotive?

The automotive sector is a hugely exciting place to be, and one where more women can continue to make a major difference, so the possibilities feel pretty much endless if you have the self-belief to do it. When you look back through the history of automotive, women have been right at the heart of innovation, so to carry on that tradition, particular at a time when the sector is experiencing so much change, makes it a career well worth pursuing.

What advice would you give your younger self on having a successful career?

Championing yourself as much as you champion others is vital and brings a confidence and self-belief that will inspire others. If you can use your energy, enthusiasm, and passion for the sector, and share it with those around you, it becomes infectious and you ultimately create other leaders who will then go on to inspire others; you just have to believe you can.