Unipart's 25 year club celebrations

On 4 December 2024, the reception area, restaurant and function room at Unipart House were transformed to host a very special event for long serving colleagues both past and present.

The 25 year club has one membership criteria - 25 years or more loyal service! And once you're in, your'e in for life - invited each year to catch up with your fellow club members.

This year, 300 people attended the event, to meet up, celebrate and reminisce about their time working at Unipart whilst enjoying a drink, food and live entertainment.

The event was made even more special as this year as it gave our alumni colleagues an opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the brand alongside our current long serving colleagues.

Many who took part in the special 25 year roadshows held during the evening could recall the formation of the brand, the buy out, the Queen's visit and many more milestone events in Unipart's history!

As is customary, during the evening Unipart CEO Darren Leigh gave a brief overview of Unipart's 2024 performance and took time to thank everyone in the room for their dedication and contributions towards making Unipart the company it is today.

This year, 25 new colleagues were welcomed to the 25 year club and, whilst not everyone could attend in person, Darren made sure to recognize every one individually as he addressed the room.

Vicki Hooper, Chief People Officer, then took to the floor to welcome those new members who were in attendance, sharing some of their career history and some fantastic feedback from their colleagues.

Karen Cushion - SAP Add-On Applications Manager within UL IT Business Systems

Karen began her career at Unipart in September 1999 as a Graduate Trainee within the Inventory Planning team. Over the years Karen has worked with many of our customers developing, implementing and supporting a variety of systems and in particular has played a critical role in supporting JLR over the years and was appointed to her current position in 2023.

Ian Dee - Warehouse operative - UL Honeybourne

Ian joined Unipart in December 1999. Ian has worked on multiple contracts across the Honeybourne site, but for the last 15 years has worked in the JLR Packaging operations. Ian has also used his vast experience, and the knowledge that he has built up over the years, to support our Baginton, Cowley and Mercia sites (to name but a few).

Lianne Reader - Finance management accounts assistant - UPA Coventry

Lianne started with Unipart in July 1999 in Purchase Ledger and has performed various functions within Finance. She is a great example of taking personal development opportunities within Unipart, completing her Accounting qualification, and becoming an OCC Facilitator, H&S committee member and a Unipart Way Six Sigma Green Belt in 2024.

Barry Scott - General Manager - UL Cowley

Barry joined Unipart in August 1999 as a finance trainee. Over the years Barry has worked on overseas assignments including setting up a Unipart site in Australia, and working in our consultancy business in the US. He has also worked across a lot of our contracts supporting bids and implementations for many of the new business opportunities. He became the General Manager for Cowley site in 2023, responsible for contracts including BMW, McLaren, Kubota, Hyperoptic and G Network.

Other members of the 25 year club that joined in 2024 but were not able to attend the event:

Sally Amos, John Conway, Timothy Donovan, Sean Flynn, Neil Godden, Christopher Higgins, Nicholas Jackson, Satish Kumar, Hazel Matthews, David McIlwaine, John McPhee, Robert Monk, Elizabeth Nichols, Tony Patterson, Hiten Raval, Kirsty Summerby, Martin Timmins, Dianne Welch, Michael Whitehead, Robert Williams.

The night concluded with the traditional drawing of a raffle, a Ferrero Roche and fond farewells as many bid each other Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year until they could see each other again.

Congratulations to everyone who has reached such an impressive milestone and are now part of the 25 year club!