Person of the year 2015

Who else could we give this award to than Guido Dumarey, the Belgian entrepreneur who seemed to appear from nowhere and put up his hand as the potential saviour of the current Holden Commodore and the Elizabeth plant in South Australia where it is built.

The 56-year-old Belgian hasn’t done anything yet except talk a good, heavily accented, game about flexible manufacturing, development of the “obsolete” Zeta architecture and an export program to back up continued local sale.

Thus, there are many hurdles to getting a deal across the line, not least convincing General Motors to hand over a ‘free license’ to Zeta for further development.

And let’s not forget that whatever is built would have to have a new name, as well as a new distribution network.

But a meeting with Dumarey a few weeks ago at his Strasbourg headquarters (at the transmission plant he bought from General Motors in 2012 and which still supplies Holden) established that he approaches life and business very much from a ‘why not’ rather than a ‘why’ perspective.

It’s why he can even conceive of the plan he has christened Project Erich and then devote considerable time and energy to its prosecution despite admitting pulling off the deal is a long-shot. That attitude and the obvious passion that accompanies it has delivered him significant triumphs and failures in his 33-year business career… And also got him into the headline for other reasons too, like when he was involved in ‘fisticuffs’ with a union official in 2009.

Dumarey speaks fast, walks fast and obviously acts fast. He will tell you himself he is a good ideas man and a bad manager. In fact, in many ways he is reminiscent of Peter Hanenberger, the former Holden MD who was another explosive bundle of energy and incredibly influential over Holden’s development for 40 years.

And let’s not forget back in 2002 Hanenberger advocated building a proper export profile for the Holden brand with its own international dealer network in key markets like the Middle East. That idea got kiboshed by General Motors management. Thirteen years later will GM again play the spoiler?

But win or lose, one important thing Dumarey has done is make us all start thinking about the next phase of the Australian car industry.

Along with the likes of Ethan Automotive and RED Automotive Technologies he has created hope that just maybe our industry can be about more than simply buying and selling cars.

Related reading:
Dumarey confirms bid for Commodore and Elizabeth
Denali four-door ute part of Dumarey’s Zeta plan