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New J . Juan Group CEO
The Barcelona based J . Juan Group has announced that daily management of the business is now being passed on to a younger member of the second generation of family ownership , with 45-year-old José Luis Juan taking over as CEO . José Luis came back into the business in 2005 with extensive and impressive business experience and academic achievement already on his résumé , having spent time with the likes of IBM , La Caixa , and global professional services provider Accenture . The Physics and Electronic Superior Engineering Barcelona University graduate , who also has a master ' s degree in Management from the ESADE business school in Barcelona and another in networks and telecommunications by La Salle University in the United States , takes over at an interesting time for the business his father founded in 1965 . The challenge of creating a corporate structure for the management and further growth of Europe ’ s second largest brake systems manufacturer ( and global # 1 in the manufacture of braided hydraulic hoses ) comes after the turnover of the business grew from 30 million Euro in 2014 to a forecast of 43.5 million at the end of 2016 (+ 40 % in just two years , having doubled in the past eight years ) and with the Group ’ s plans calling for it to double from there by 2020 . José Luis will be supported by the experience of his elder sister , Maria Angeles Juan Verdejo and brother Carlos Juan , who will both remain with the Group in Vice President roles ; strength in depth where the management of the business is concerned will be at a premium in the coming years . With customer demand driving growth and expansion , their production facilities are being used profitably just as quickly as they are able to develop them . The Group ’ s factories at Gavá and Sant Cugat near Barcelona , Jiaxing , Zhejiang , near Shanghai , Jalgaon , near Mumbai in India and , soon , at Monterey in Mexico , look likely to be operating at full capacity quite quickly . As an OEM supplier to most of the major motorcycle manufacturers and many of the smaller ones too – they have 80 OEM clients all over the world and equipping a claimed 90 % of western bikes – there appears to be no end in sight to their growth opportunities . The enlargement of their production capacity in Europe , China and India has been essential to meet the orders from their existing customers . At Sant Cugat , north of Barcelona , the company has been granted reindustrialisation permission ( in November last year ) for a former Delphi Automotive manufacturing facility which the Group acquired , where J . Juan will localise all its European production of brakes , with the Gavá facility to the south-west of the city focussed on the production of braided hydraulic hose products . The beginning of 2016 saw the completion of a programme of expansion for their Chinese factory , 10
Left to right – Maria Angeles Juan Verdejo , José Luis Juan and Carlos Juan
years after the Group founded it – a factory where productivity is said to run at some 100,000 Euro for each employee . J . Juan China has gained an important position in the Asian market . At the end of August 2016 , J . Juan inaugurated production of motorcycle brakes in Jalgaon ( India ) at the factory it is using there . Owned and operated by the world ’ s third largest car brakes manufacturer Chassis Brake International ( the France headquartered former Bosch brakes division ), brakes branded KBX and J . Juan will be contract-manufactured there to the Group ’ s own specifications , and using its own tooling , for the 12 million PTW a year Indian market . The big technology story for J . Juan in India has been the success there of its Gavá developed Combined Brake System ( CBS ) – subject to the model ,
Launched three years ago , Braktec is J . Juan ’ s dedicated brand for MX / Off-road and Trial bike products
New CEO , José Luis Juan
ABS and CBS have been made mandatory for all new 125cc + motorcycles sold in India from April 2017 . So , at the beginning of 2017 , after years of effort and leadership , Angeles and Carlos Juan have put their trust in the younger brother of the family to take over the leadership of a company that is much transformed and set for dramatic further growth in the years ahead . Hopefully their knowledge and experience will be there for the business to draw on for years to come , as José Luis Juan builds new foundations for further growth and development of a business that enjoys a hard earned , carefully developed and very valuable reputation throughout the global motorcycle market . www . jjuan . es
16 INTERNATIONAL DEALER NEWS - APRIL / MAY 2017