Finning U.K. Names Parkes New CEO
Finning International, the world’s largest Caterpillar dealer, announced that Neil Dickinson, managing director of Finning U.K. and Ireland, will retire after a 36-year career. Kevin Parkes, director of Finning U.K. and Ireland’s equipment solution division, was named managing director succeeding Dickinson. Parkes will assume the role Feb. 1.
Dickinson will assist in the leadership transition and remain with the company in an advisory capacity until the end of March. Parkes will join Finning’s senior leadership team and report to Finning’s CEO Scott Thomson. Dickinson began his career in 1979 with Leverton, which was acquired by Finning in 1997. He has held a variety of operational and leadership roles across the U.K. and Canada, including posts in human resources, heavy construction and power systems, and has led the Finning U.K. and Ireland business since 2010.
Parkes brings considerable experience with Finning to his new role, most recently leading the equipment solutions division. He joined Finning as a graduate trainee in 1996 and held a variety of progressively senior roles in the equipment solutions division. From 2010 to 2015, Parkes was CEO of Hewden, a leading U.K. equipment rental company, following Finning's divestiture of that business. Parkes returned to Finning after his previous 13 years with the company to take on the role of director, equipment solutions.
Finning is headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.