Simon Brown is retiring as managing director of Amazone Ltd. After 40 years with the company, managing the stand at Cereals 2024 will be his last task. Matt Smith, currently national sales manager, is taking over the role as managing director.
Simon left Harper Adams in 1981 with a HND in agricultural engineering and, after a brief spell within the dealer network, joined Amazone Ltd’s German parent company Amazonen-Werke in 1982 where he travelled extensively in Germany as a field service engineer. Returning back to Britain in April 1983, Amazone Ltd, with its founding members, Rod Baker, Peter Murray and Simon, opened its doors in Easter that year and launched to the press and dealer network at the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh.
In those early years Simon looked after both parts distribution and field service for the whole of Britain as the brand continued to grow with the introduction of products such as the ZA-U 1501, the Super Jet 1600 boom spreaders and the D7 seed drill. Simon left his spanners behind and embarked on a career in sales, taking over the Yorkshire, East Midlands and East Anglia area, moving from Gloucestershire up to Lincolnshire.
Simon Brown has been with Amazone for 40 years. His last task for the company will be to manage the stand at Cereals 2024.
To support the growing business with spare parts and service, Amazone opened satellite depots in Linlithgow, West Lothian and Harworth, South Yorks. In 2002, Simon returned to his service roots becoming national service manager based at Harworth, which by then was the UK home for the company.
At this time, Amazone was also the importer for Krone hay and forage products, Strautmann diet feeders and Elho bales wrappers, the service support for which also came under Simon. But as the Amazone product portfolio continued to grow, the distribution agreements with third party suppliers were terminated and Simon took over as brand manager, a position he still holds today alongside his current role as managing director.
“We have such a great, long-serving team here at Amazone who have a vast depth of knowledge and experience and the beauty of Matt taking on the mantle is that it ensures the continuity of the business for next generation and I wish him all the best for the future,” comments Simon. “Of course, I will still be keeping an eye on things from the outside making sure they are doing it all properly.”
A new managing director is not the only change at Amazone. Jane Braun takes over in the new role of operations manager, looking after parts and whole goods distribution and Becky Drobnica joins as admin & HR manager. Rob Watson continues as national aftersales manager and John Spencer continues to hold the purse strings. Additionally, two new Harper Adams graduates have joined the team with local farmer’s son David Thomson coming in as marketing specialist and James Rogers as business support specialist.
Main picture: Matt Smith (right) will take over as managing director of Amazone Ltd next month.
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