The autoWORKS Team
Director
Gunther Schmitz
Gunther Schmitz is a qualified mechanical engineer who started his degree at Stellenbosch University and graduated in Germany. He has spent thirteen years working in the German motor industry, most significantly as the head of the Product and Service Quality Unit at DEKRA Consulting, a subsidiary of the German-based technology, safety and environmental firm DEKRA AG. In this role, he spent seven years consulting major manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Nissan and Kia. His primary areas of focus were testing and improving the quality of their repairs, car services and systems.
"Because you need to trust who's repairing your car"
autoWORKS was the only finalist from the Retail Motor Industry in the Cape Talk / Nedbank small business award.
Bruce Martin
Bruce Martin joined the autoWORKS team in 2017, he started as Foreman in our Salt River branch and in a short time got promoted to Branch Manager of autoWORKS Strand. Before joining autoWORKS, Bruce worked at Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and Audi, during his career Bruce won 1st place in the RMI MIWA Mechanic of the year competition and also won numerous Customer Satisfaction and Outstanding Service awards. Bruce has always had a love and passion for mechanics and we are excited to have him as a part of our autoWORKS Team.
Branch Manager
Matthew Kempster-Davies
Matthew joins the autoWORKS team with 15 years experience. Matthew started his career at a Ford and Mazda Dealership. He gained further experience working as a BMW specialist and on VW in Europe before becoming the Service Manager of Citroen in Cape Town. He was trained extensively by Citroen, Ford and Mazda on diagnostics, repairs as well as customer and workshop management. Matthew is passionate about imported vehicles like Citroen as well as locally produced German and Japanese cars.
Branch Manager
Robert Taylor
Rob Joined the motor industry as a young man at the age of 16 years old and qualified as a Grade A technician before his 18th birthday becoming one of the youngest qualified technicians in South Africa. He quailified with Volkswagen and the moved over to Nissan to become their senior technician in Durban. A little later in his career he moved over to Bosch due to his love for all brands of vehicles as the workshop manager and senior on car diagnostics technician. Years later Rob decided to venture into something totally new where he became an Airline Pilot. After spending many years in the industry, he was promoted to Fleet Captain and Line training Captain where he would train new up and coming pilots into their promoted positions until they were of spec to be released to the line, operating at a high standard level as expected by the Airline as well as by Civil aviation expectations. Rob has now decided to come back to the motor industry to pursue his passion and we would like to welcome him to autoWORKS edge and managerial skills amongst our team.
Branch foreman
Gerard De Vries
Gerard joined the autoWORKS team as foreman at our Salt river branch in 2018 with 10 years of experience. He previously worked at Chrysler and has experience working on Volvo, Chrysler, dodge and Jeep.
Gerard is always willing to go the extra mile and has impressed us with his exceptional customer communication and passion for the motor industry.
Our Interns
Clinton Lyners – Business Management Intern, completing his 18-month practical. He just started with us in February, we look forward to see him growing within the business.
Lucian Jonas – Completed his 18-month practical in business management and ready to receive his diploma. He is permanently employed as our HR/IT Administrator. Lucian has shown great promise since day 1, very reliable and efficient. He is always at work and goes the extra mile for anyone that he is assisting.
Jardine Griebelaar - Business Management Intern, completing her 18-month practical.
Shanice Alexander - Business Management Intern, completing her 18-month practical
Jardine and Shanice has been with us for 1 year already and they are showing very promising attributes which we at autoWORKS value.
Lindar Chitumba – Completed 18 - Month practical in Financial Management and received her diploma. She is a rising star in the finance department.
Keenan Fisher – Completed his 18-month practical in business management and also ready to receive his diploma. He is permanently employed as our Branch Quotes Assistant. Keenan does not speak much but he sure gets the job done. Our service assistants can count on him for support.
Gina Davis – HR coordinator. That's me
Clinton Lyners
Lucian Jonas
Jardine Griebelaar
Shanice Alexander
Lindar Chitumba
Keenan Fisher
Gina Davis
