17th May 2022 – CoolKit has boosted its senior team with two appointments as it continues its plans for growth following record sales orders in Q1 2022.
The UK’s largest manufacturer of temperature-controlled vans has welcomed Daniel Miller as its first-ever finance director and Danny Hough as head of technical and development.
Experienced finance specialist, Daniel Miller, joins the company from Finnish paper and energy technology supplier, Valmet, where he most recently held the position of UK managing director. Miller brings a wealth of experience gained through several senior-level finance roles over his 14-year career. He joins CoolKit’s senior management team and will oversee the company’s strategic finance and planning, focusing on digital transformation and driving continued growth for the business which recently reported that its Q1 sales orders for new converted vans were up by 75%, with total year sales forecast to hit £15 million.
Miller said: “I’m very excited to be working with CoolKit, a company with so much potential. The team is full of fantastic people with a culture of quality, care and attention across every department. My job is to build on this extremely successful foundation and look for new ways of working through digital transformation tools, data capture and analysis. I also will be working with the management team to design strategies that will help CoolKit continue its current excellent growth trajectory and, critically, support the business to implement the targets, actions and budgetary performance required to achieve those strategies.”
Danny Hough, a qualified mechanical engineer, will be responsible for the product design and development side of the business. Bringing skills gained throughout his career journey from toolmaker’s apprentice to manager, he will focus on fostering innovation, continuing to ensure that CoolKit’s temperature-controlled vans are best-in-class.
“I was delighted to be offered the position.” Hough said. “The CoolKit team is continuing to expand and is supported by a strong management team who are focussed on the development of the business.
“I will be heading up the design team, helping to grow and evolve CoolKit and our products, providing our customers with best-in-class vehicle conversions that meet their unique challenges and needs. I hope to apply my experience both tactically and strategically to develop a culture where we positively challenge ways of working across the design and manufacturing process, and ask if there are ways that we can do things even better to improve our products.”
Commenting on the two appointments, Rupert Gatty, CoolKit’s CEO and founder, said that Daniel and Danny will be instrumental in helping to take the business forward. “I’m very happy to welcome Danny and Daniel to the CoolKit team.”
“Hiring our first finance director is a strategic move which signals a step-change for our business. We have seen huge demand for our products post-Covid from our customers across the food and pharmaceutical industries and are substantially outperforming the performance trend of the light commercial vehicle industry (LCV) at large.
“CoolKit’s success depends on us listening and understanding our customers’ evolving needs and complex challenges, and by us continually re-imagining our products and services to meet them. Both Daniel and Danny will play key roles in meeting our ambitious growth plans.”
Since 2005, CoolKit has solved the complex transportation problems faced by temperature-controlled fleet operators, optimising the productivity of their light commercial vehicle (LCV) fleets, whilst also aiming to minimise the associated owning and running costs.
CoolKit is also widely recognised by fleet funders, vehicle OEMs, and commercial vehicle dealers as a pioneer of highly innovative temperature-controlled and refrigerated van conversions for the food, pharmaceutical and logistics industries, remaining focussed on the goal of producing tomorrow’s refrigerated vans, today.
