John Ruddy appointed ZC Rubber OTR tyre sales director for Europe
In addition to naming Mark Turner its European agriculture tyre sales director, ZC Rubber has appointed John Ruddy European OTR tyre sales director.
Ruddy first joined ZC Rubber as European OTR sales manager in February 2019. His role was to strengthen and build the European distribution network for ZC Rubber’s Westlake and Goodride OTR tyre brands.
“I am very proud to see we have set up a great network across every corner of the European market. The one stop supply of premium quality off the road tyres brings great benefits to our European partners,” Ruddy said.
He brings decades of experience within the European OTR tyre industry to his new role.
He joins ZC Rubber from his previous role as OTR business development manager at Triangle Tyre Company Ltd., where he worked for over six years helping with its OTR market development throughout Europe as part of Triangle’s new global strategy.
Previous to his move to Europe, Ruddy was very well know here in Ireland where he worked for Euro Tyres, selling and promoting Triangle earthmoving tyres throughout the country.
Prior to that ruddy was the OTR manager for Bridgestone Ireland for over eight years.
Mark Turner has been involved in the agricultural tyre business for more than 25 years. He joins ZC Rubber from Prometeon Tyre Group, where he was commercial and technical manager, west and east Europe, agricultural tyres.
Previous to that Turner was the senior product marketing manager, agricultural and industrial tyres at Maxam Tires
International.
Turner also gained a lot of experience in various positions with Goodyear for over 27 years.
He has served as vice chairman of the ETRTO agricultural sub-committee, coordinator of the experimental standards group within the ETRTO agricultural sub-committee, and the farm and industrial tyre representative at ETRMA.
Additionally, he actively participated in both committees, contributing to the process to restructure the Europool categories in 2011 and 2012 as well as framing new standards in the ETRTO categories such as IF CFO and VF NRO.
Turner said: “Tianli started its first radial agricultural tyre in 2006; they are an important player in the European Agricultural tyre market. Zhongce Rubber Group acquiring Tianli tyres in early 2022 was a very smart decision and will reinforce Tianli’s unique brand awareness in the off highway segment.”
ZC Rubber has big OTR growth plans
Mr. Ge Guorong, the senior vice president of Zhongce Rubber Group commented: “Zhongce has relocated its OTR factory to Tianjin after the acquisition of the Tianli brand.
“We are now one of the very few tyre companies that can offer more than 2,000 SKUs of off-highway products from one central factory, and we have promised to invest much more in the following years, aiming to be among the global top three players in the off-highway tyre business in the future.
“The value to our customers is enormous. In 2022, we reached an historical sales record in the off-highway tyre business, and our capacity is still not enough for the strong demand from partners across the world.
“Our commitment to all of our customers is to provide both local service and global supply through our local team working with local partners.”
ZC Rubber is ranked in the top eight in the 2022 global tyre companies in terms of sales revenue.