Kevin Thomas Morley (born May 1950), is a

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

born businessman, known for being the former managing director, sales and marketing of the former

Rover Group The Rover Group plc was the British vehicle manufacturing conglomerate known as "BL plc" until 1986 (formerly British Leyland), which had been a state-owned company since 1975. It initially included the Austin Rover Group car business (compris ...

. Holding an MSc from the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

and

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

from

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston'' for post-nominals) is a public university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first College of a ...

, Morley joined

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

UK in 1977, and during a nine-year career achieved 11 promotions. Morley joined the

Austin Rover Group The Austin Rover Group (abbreviated ARG) was a British motor manufacturer. It was created in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland (BL). Previously, this entity had been known as BL Cars Ltd (formerly Leyland ...

in 1986 as marketing director under Canadian

Graham Day Sir Judson Graham Day, (born 3 May 1933) is a British-Canadian business executive, lawyer and corporate director who now lives in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. Early life and education Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he graduated from Dalhousie Law ...

, where his first project was the Rover 200 Mk2/R8 in 1989. Morley was appointed managing director, sales and marketing of the Rover Car Group five years later, the company had a turnover of £3.2 billion and a staff of 1100. In 1991, Morley appeared in Rowan Atkinson's

mockumentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...

, ''The Driven Man'', speaking about the relationship people have with the car as a construct. After leaving Rover in 1992, Morley set up Kevin Morley Marketing, whose sole client was Rover Group. Having described the motor marketing as a "bunch of expensive lunch-bandits," in 1995 Morley sold the company to

Lintas MullenLowe Lintas Group, formerly Lintas, is an Indian advertising marketing communications company. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interpublic Group (IPG), and is part of the multinational MullenLowe Group. As of July 2023, M ...

. Morley has been a director of

dfs DFS may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, advertising agency, now Saatchi & Saatchi * DFS Furniture, a furniture retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland * DFS Group (Duty Free Shoppers), Hong Kong * DFS Program Exchang ...

Plc, Flying Flowers, Jacobs Holdings; and founding member of the Advisory Board of Jon Moulton's

Venture Capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

company

Alchemy Partners Alchemy Partners is a British private equity firm, which specialises in investing in distressed and undervalued or underperforming businesses and other special situations through debt and equity throughout Europe. Alchemy was founded in 1997 b ...

. Morley is a Chairman of several private companies, and Senior non-executive director of Stadium Group.He became chairman and head of Young Driver in 2009 and appeared both on the television and radio promoting it. Morley is Honorary Professor of Business Studies at

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

. In March 2009, Morley appeared on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's reality television show ''

Secret Millionaire Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controver ...

,'' where working as a volunteer among community projects in

Haringey The London Borough of Haringey ( , same as Harringay) is a London borough in north London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three forme ...

north London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames and the City of London. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshi ...

, he donated £250,000. Married with two children, Morley and his family live in

Slinfold Slinfold is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Horsham (district), Horsham District of West Sussex, England. Geography The village is almost west of Horsham, just off the A29 road. The parish covers . The 2001 Census ...

Horsham Horsham () is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

. His cars include a Ferrari 599 GTB.

References

External links

Bio of Kevin Morley
at

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People educated at St Mary's College, Crosby Alumni of the University of Surrey Alumni of Aston University Academics of the University of Warwick Businesspeople from Liverpool {{UK-business-bio-1950s-stub