Kelkay has announced the appointment of Sarah Downing to the senior management team in the newly created role of head of marketing.

Ms Downing comes to Kelkay with many years of industry experience including several years at Gardman where she was latterly marketing director until 2015 when she relocated to the Yorkshire region to take up a similar role with Humber Bondholders.

During her time in the gardening industry Ms Downing managed the strategic development of new brands, developed trade communications including POS and print and played a pivotal role in the management of the company’s attendance at Glee as well as driving forward the creation of website and digital marketing programmes.

Kelkay managing director Antony Harker says: “I’ve made this new and strategically important appointment to help us respond to the increasing demands on our business and of course to support our continued growth. I am delighted to be welcoming Sarah to the team at Kelkay. I have been aware of her achievements and the impact she made in the garden sector and I’m looking forward to working closely with her on a number of exciting new projects.”

During her time at Humber Bondholders, Ms Downing worked with a number of global businesses like Siemens, Smith & Nephew and BP so she has great experience of major corporate organisations, but she also has a very practical and hands-on approach to working to support the UK’s garden centre trade.

"I'm delighted to be joining Kelkay at such an exciting time in the businesses’ development when there is such strength and momentum in the company, so to be part of that and back in an industry that I love is just brilliant.” says Ms Downing.  “It's clear that Kelkay is focused on delivering market leading products and producing creative merchandising solutions for its customers. I'm really looking forward to developing the new role and helping the business take the marketing function one step further - exploring new ways to demonstrate continued innovation."