SANTA ANA, Calif. — Yokohama Tire Corp. (YTC) has promoted Andrew Briggs to the newly created position of vice president of marketing and product management.
Mr. Briggs will be replacing industry veteran Fred Koplin, who retired as the senior director of marketing and motorsports.
Mr. Briggs joined YTC in 2003 and has held several positions, including account manager, senior manager of motorsports, and senior director of marketing, product planning and motorsports.
In 2015, Mr. Briggs was named senior director of tire business and product planning. He will report to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Barna in his new position.
Mr. Briggs earned his master's degree in business from the University of California, Irvine, and he has a degree in Business Administration from California State University, Long Beach.
"As senior director of tire business and product planning, Andrew was instrumental in successfully introducing several new products to the market, while also reinforcing the value created by our analytics and customer service teams," Mr. Barna said.
"In his expanded role, Andrew will be responsible for leveraging the company's product plan into a cohesive marketing and motorsports strategy for North America, while continuing to provide direct supervision to customer service and tire business planning."
Mr. Koplin has been with YTC for 12 years.
"Fred was adept at forging long-standing and trusting relationships with many of YTC's most prolific distributor and dealer customers, while also consummating a number of strategic sponsorships with major sports and auto racing teams," Mr. Barna said.