I was recently invited to be on the judging panel for the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Award alongside Andy Palmer, CEO of Aston Martin. I was impressed by what he told me about how Aston Martin are making women central to their strategy and asked if I could interview him for my readers. I was delighted when he said yes and we spent a fascinating half an hour together last week delving into this subject.
Aston Martin has adopted a very progressive attitude towards women buyers. They have recruited an all female advisory board to guide them on how to design a model that will appeal to women and their new DBX model is the result (it has 4 doors rather than 2, room for kids in the back and enough space to carry luggage to the airport).
They are also bringing out an electric model too, as women are typically more influenced by environmental factors when buying a car.
This iconic brand has discovered that focusing on women customers makes good business sense for a number of reasons. As Andy says:
“Firstly, although women don’t tend to buy luxury cars themselves, they are consulted on 70% of purchases so they have the power to give the thumbs up or down.
“Secondly, the biggest area of growth in high net worth individuals is women – especially in China – so it makes good business sense to design cars that appeal to them.
“When it comes to buying cars, women will encourage their male partners to reward themselves by buying a luxury car but are less likely to do this for themselves. We want women to feel that these cars are for them too, and they can enjoy them in their own right rather than just via their partners.”
Aston Martin is showing the way by treating its female customers with respect and putting their needs and aspirations at the heart of their design process.
That represents leadership in my book.
Thank you for a wonderful interview Andy!