PJH Group’s Jonathan Hartley has taken on the new position of national account manager – UK merchants, following his previous PJH role as national sales manager UK (retail distribution).

The move is representative of a renewed focus on PJH’s relationship with the UK merchant due to significant growth in the sector, based on the merchant’s evolving customer requirements and its increase in high-street consumer traffic.

Mr Hartley will head up the new PJH Group division, dedicated purely to building and maintaining strong trading relationships with both national and regional merchants. He will also negotiate strategic buying agreements with merchant committee members and associated purchasing groups.

Mr Hartley has built up 12 years of experience within PJH Group, during which time he has gained significant skills in his roles as contract sales manager (housebuilding), regional sales manager (distribution) and most recently, national sales manager (retail distribution) where he ran the PJH UK sales team.

Speaking of his new appointment, Mr Hartley said: “My new focus on developing the PJH merchant channel aims to enhance our relationship with this ever-changing sector to help drive and deliver growth through differentiated offers and new product initiatives. I will be working more closely with our merchants than ever before, aiming to understand individual business needs and deliver more focussed merchant product ranges, prices, quantity deals and trade literature.

“A strong mix of key selling product lines, volume deals and new concepts in a ‘priced-to-go’ range, as well as aspirational products – as featured in our showroom brochures for those merchants looking to make their showroom drive more sales with end users – are all on the agenda.”