Amazone’s managing director retires after over 40 years in business
30th April 2024
After more than 40 years with the company, Amazone Ltd has just announced the retirement of its managing director, Simon Brown.
Mr Brown left Harper Adams in 1981 with an HND in agricultural engineering and, after a brief spell within the dealer network, he joined Amazone’s 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, with its founding members, Rod Baker, Peter Murray and Mr Brown, opened its doors at Easte. It launched to the press and dealer network at the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh.
In those early years, Mr Brown looked after both parts distribution and field service for the whole of Britain as the brand continued to grow with the introduction of iconic products such as the ZA-U 1501, the Super Jet 1600 boom spreaders and the D7 seed drill.
Expansion of business
He left his spanners behind and embarked on a career in sales, taking over the Yorkshire, East Midlands & East Anglia area, moving from Gloucestershire up to Lincolnshire to enable him to canvas his new area.
To support the growing business with spare parts and service, Amazone took the strategic decision to open up satellite depots in Linlithgow, West Lothian and Harworth, South Yorks. But as the transport network improved, the decision was taken to make Harworth the home of Amazone Ltd.
In 2002, Mr Brown returned to his service roots, becoming national service manager based at Harworth. 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.
The Amazone product portfolio continued to grow, with an ever-widening range of sprayers and cultivators being added to the spreaders and seeding systems. The distribution agreements with third party suppliers were terminated, and Mr Brown put his extensive product knowledge to use by taking over as brand manager, a position he still holds today alongside his current role as managing director.
Last task
Amazone moved just up the road in 2019 to its purpose-built, 30-acre, state-of-the-art, Training, Education & Research Centre at Orchard Farm, Auckley which, along with its commercial farming enterprise, provides the ideal infrastructure to train dealers and end users, showcase new and existing products as well as carrying out field trials based on existing and future products in the Amazone range.
Managing the stand at Cereals 2024, this year to be held at Newnham Hall, Bygrave Woods, Hertfordshire, will be Mr Brown’s last task.
The company encourages anyone whose paths have crossed with Mr Brown over the last 40 years to come and reminisce about the vast changes that have taken place in the agricultural machinery world.
Well placed to support customers and dealers
Christian Dreyer, chairman of the board and owner of the Amazonen-Werke, said: “It will be odd not having Simon around supporting the business after so many years. We are though extremely happy that Simon has used his foresight to build up a professional team around him, which will secure an efficient handover to the following management.”
Matt Smith, currently national sales manager, will take over the role as managing director following Mr Brown’s retirement.
He added: “I am delighted to be taking on the role from Simon, and in the past few months, the business has been evolving to function without him, which means that we are well placed to continue supporting both customer and dealer.”
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