Bruce Robertson, Jaguar Land Rover’s new managing director in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) said that investments by the brand in MENA would drive further innovation and expansion in the region, adding: “Investment is the fuel for innovation and prosperity for the brand here in the region” and will result in further development in training, customer service, engineering and product development.

He plans to grow the dealership network to 64 outlets in the next three years from 40 at the present time.

Growth of the regional markets was significant.

With Jaguar’s record sales increase of 21 percent in its last full fiscal year, Robertson said the brand also boasted an all-time peak performance in March.

MENA’s new managing director then went on to reference the oldest Jaguar dealer in the world; Saad & Trad SAL in Lebanon who started importing Jaguars almost 65 years ago in 1950, before going on to say that: “The stage was firmly set for Jaguar’s unbeatable future product pipeline, most notably the Jaguar XE”, which follows a seven year run of success, since the launch of the award winning Jaguar XF, the flagship XJ and most recently the Jaguar F-TYPE.

Land Rover, present in the Middle East for over 65 years, has produced equally successful yields.

Last fiscal, sales were up 39 percent on the previous year making MENA the third fastest growing Land Rover market globally.

This, Robertson says, puts the brand in its strongest position yet as it prepares to launch the new Discovery Sport; a move he hopes will: “See us make it to fourth position overall for Jaguar Land Rover globally.”

Now present in 17 markets in the MENA region with 40 dealerships, Robertson’s aim is to grow the Jaguar Land Rover dealer footprint to 64 dealerships across 18 markets in the next 3 years with strategic actions planned in 2014 to further strengthen the regional dealer network.

Further evidence of investment in its growing operation in MENA is confirmation from Robertson that a dedicated JLR parts distribution center will be opened in Jebel Ali Free Zone to service the entire region.

JLR is also investing heavily in regional consumer insights and trends across both brands and for Robertson this is an area of great importance: “For us, it goes beyond in-market testing and training — we are actually engineering our cars for this region based on the feedback we get from our customers and I am confident we will have even more innovative products that are tailored for our MENA audience — cars that won’t just be popular, but will dominate their segments.”

Robertson brings with him over 19 years in global sales and operational roles for Jaguar Land Rover in key markets including China, the UK and South Africa.

His most recent post as Executive Vice President for Sales & Service Operations in China saw the South African native play an instrumental role in transforming the business in China from an operation selling less than 20,000 vehicles a year with 34 dealers to selling 103,000 vehicles with 220 dealers in under three years making it Jaguar Land Rover’s current largest market globally.