As a tech company working in the automotive space, there is still work to be done to drive greater gender diversity at Motorway. Our purpose is to build a better car market for tomorrow, for everyone. This of course means we need to continue to attract talented women to the business, particularly into specialist tech, data and leadership positions, as well as supporting our existing female employees to develop their careers and progress in the company. Having diversity of thinking will allow us to continue to innovate, to better reflect our customers and to ultimately deliver on our mission. Working with Women in Data® will allow us to further drive this change.
From our founding in 2017, Motorway has harnessed the power of technology to deliver an amazing experience for customers and make the car market more accessible for everyone. We are a market leader in using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to disrupt the automotive industry, such as using advanced image recognition to help customers profile their cars ready for sale, all by using the power of their phone.
Over the next five years, we see great potential for generative AI and large language models to revolutionise the often bureaucratic process of selling or buying cars for both our customers and our dealer base. We are actively developing the next set of automation solutions for customers in this space to provide greater flexibility than the traditional car marketplace has allowed for decades. We also predict demand to continue to rise for increased visibility via data provision, as the population as a whole becomes more data literate. For example, we recently launched Motorway Collect, an app which Motorway has empowered our dealer base by providing comparisons between the vehicle being collected and the original profile, resulting in a faster, more accurate appraisal process, all through the power of data.
Motorway is the UK’s fastest-growing used car marketplace. We connect people selling their car directly with our network of more than 5,000 verified car dealers, matching each seller on our platform with the dealer who most wants to buy their car. We help car owners sell their cars 100% online for the best price in as little as 24 hours, with their car collected from home for free, while supporting our car dealer partners to easily acquire the best used car stock.
Liz Kistruck, CFO of Motorway
Liz Kistruck is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Motorway, the UK’s fastest-growing used car marketplace. Liz joined the business in July 2023, as Motorway’s first CFO, a role which oversees the finance function, as well as legal, analytics and payments operations.
Prior to joining Motorway, Liz worked as CFO at fashion marketplace Lyst, and spent 14 years at Expedia group holding CFO roles for Hotels.com, Expedia Partner Solutions, Expedia for Business as well as serving as SVP Global Marketing Analytics for the Expedia consumer brands. Liz trained as a management accountant with Dulux Paints and prior to that worked as a process improvement consultant across various European manufacturing sites.
Liz has a Masters in Engineering from Cambridge University and is a Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA).
Elly Evans, Director of Analytics at Motorway
Elly is currently a Director of Analytics at Motorway, the UK’s fastest growing used-car marketplace. In her role, Elly established the Analytics function at Motorway, leading a team of 10 data scientists. Elly empowers teams across Motorway in Marketing, Product and Operations with key insights and modelling to optimise their performance and encourage data-driven decision making.
Prior to Motorway, Elly spent over five years at Expedia Group and Hotels.com, optimising marketing channel analytics and leading on data strategy and enablement.
Elly has an MSci in Natural Sciences (Experimental and Theoretical Physics) and a PhD in Combined PET/MRI Preclinical Imaging, both from the University of Cambridge. Originally interested in an academic career as a Medical Physicist, Elly has had a long-standing interest in ensuring that technical advancements through data and engineering can be applied in interesting and useful ways to real-life problems.
Following on from her PhD, Elly joined Tesco initially as an Analyst in 2016 and built a team of data scientists and analysts specializing in forecasting demand for items on promotion across the UK, Ireland, Central Europe and Malaysia.
Ultimately, Elly believes having as diverse a group as possible, armed with accurate data, leads to the best outcomes. She has encouraged her employers, past and present, to widen their recruitment base to encourage more apprenticeships and entry level roles outside of our graduate program to open these opportunities up to a wider base.
Outside of work, Elly loves exploring the world with her young family and running marathons. She recently ran the London Marathon and looks forward to joining team Motoway at the Great City Run.
Bianca Oprisa is a Statistician at Motorway, the UK’s fastest-growing used-car marketplace. She joined Motorway in October 2022 as a Data Analyst and recently took on the exciting role of Statistician.
Prior to Motorway, Bianca spent six years in the marketing industry as an account manager. She then pursued a master’s degree in data analytics and spent two years as a data analyst in the music industry.
Bianca has been a key driver of the experimentation programme at Motorway, finding the best experimentation design for each use case, building an experimentation framework and working across all areas of the business.
Bianca is passionate about using data to drive decision-making and improve business outcomes.
Simal Patel, Lead Product Manager at Motorway
Simal is a Lead Product Manager at Motorway, the UK’s fastest-growing used car marketplace. Simal joined the business in February 2023 to lead the Growth and Engagement teams responsible for optimising the experience for private car sellers, creating innovative tools to give consumers more reasons to engage with Motorway.
Prior to joining Motorway, Simal has been in Product roles in high-growth/scale-up companies such as Farfetch and Activision Blizzard King as well as a founding member of a gardening marketplace startup. Simal’s transition into Product from Engineering roles at King and The London Stock Exchange were inevitable given her passion for using tech/data to solve commercial and consumer problems.
Simal has a BSc in Computer Science and Management from Kings College London.
Outside of Product, Simal is a gin enthusiast and entrepreneur and has her own gin brand called Gin Wala.
Katie MacDonald, Senior Product Manager at Motorway
Katie MacDonald is a seasoned Senior Product Manager with a track record of driving innovation and enhancing user experiences. As Senior Product Manager for the dealer experience at Motorway, Katie is responsible for the optimization of the vehicle browsing and bidding processes, driving value for Motorway’s dealer partners. Katie actively uses data, leveraging the power of machine learning and AI models, to help dealers find more relevant stock, faster, ultimately improving their overall user experience.
Prior to her role at Motorway, Katie was a Senior Product Manager at MasterClass, an educational and entertainment streaming platform. There, she played a pivotal role in building the B2B segment, contributing significantly to the company’s growth and strategic initiatives.
Hannah Carroll, Analytics Engineer at Motorway
Hannah Carroll is an Analytics Engineer at Motorway, the UK’s fastest growing used-car marketplace. In her current role, Hannah provides clean datasets to end-users, modelling data in a way that empowers teams to find answers to their questions in an independent way. She supports the upper funnel, customer success service teams and also the post-sale teams, in order to use data to enhance user experiences and operational efficiency.
Hannah’s journey with Motorway began when she joined the company as a Data Analyst and after one year, made the transition to Analytics Engineer.
Before joining Motorway, Hannah gained valuable experience in various analytical roles across different industries. She served as a Tactical Analyst at ASOS, where she honed her ability to interpret data trends and support tactical decision-making processes. Prior to that, she was a Workforce Planning Specialist at MOO, where she focused on optimising workforce allocation and planning to improve operational efficiencies.
