AGCO announced several staff promotions in March. Jason Marx has been promoted to vice president, marketing, North America, reporting to Bob Crain, senior vice president, General Manager, North America. This announcement follows the promotion of Doug Griffin to vice president, global brand management and corporate marketing.

Marx assumes these responsibilities on April 1, 2011 and will be challenged to elevate the gains achieved by Doug and his team over the past five years. He will be tasked to lead further alignment of aftermarket initiatives with wholegoods and gain market share to help our dealers achieve greater ROI and success in the marketplace.

Since 2009, Marx served as vice president Parts, North America and has worked with the North America parts team to achieve higher levels of performance and support to our dealers. Prior to joining AGCO, he worked at AlixPartners and assisted AGCO in Duluth, Ga. with the New Way to Work initiatives in the sales, marketing and distribution functions. He holds a finance degree from Utah State Univ. and a MBA from Brigham Young Univ. where he advanced his studies in finance while focusing on marketing, sales, strategy and operations.

In an effort to further drive customer and dealer satisfaction improvements from the past year, AGCO also introduced Hans Lehmann as the vice president, parts, North America, reporting to Crain and Bruce Plagman, vice president, Global Parts. Lehmann will take responsibility for continuing to implement the strategy and path of improvement that has been established over the past year.

He has worked closely with AGCO for the past three years as a consultant in AlixPartners Enterprise Improvement group. He brings a background of experience from a number of heavy equipment industries and companies. His specialties reside on the supply chain and operations side of the business with experience in logistics, purchasing, procurement, inventory management and planning. Lehmann has a finance degree from the Univ. of Kentucky and a MBA from Indiana Univ. with a focus on finance and strategy. He began his tenure with AGCO on March 16.