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Jonathan Sergel, AA's Chief Mobility Officer. Photo by Jessie Casson.

Q&A: Jonathan Sergel, AA's Chief Mobility Officer

30 September 2025

Jo Percival

By Jo Percival
Jo Percival is the Digital Editor of AA Directions magazine.

We chat with Jonathan Sergel, Chief Mobility Officer, about his role at the AA and the changes that Members can expect to see from the Association in the future. 

Tell us a bit about your background. How did you end up at the AA?

I grew up in a car family. My dad, uncles and grandfather were all involved in the motor industry, so I’ve always been around cars. Is ‘car tragic’ a description that could be used?

After university in Christchurch, I got into the rental car business, then started my own company, called Kiwi Car, alongside my father.

In the early 2000s I moved into a corporate role with a company called Lease Plan based in Wellington. Then, I had the opportunity to move up to Auckland to work for Turners. I was at Turners for more than 12 years, starting off as national account manager and ended up as head of cars. Unfortunately, I never met Tina.

So, renting cars, leasing cars, financing cars and then selling and buying cars. There is a theme here!

I came to the AA because it was an opportunity to be right at the centre of the industry as it was going through this big change with drivetrains – from internal combustion engines to hybrid and EVs. It plonked me firmly in the middle, which is a great place to be because we’re Switzerland, we’re brand agnostic. 

Jonathan Sergel, Chief Mobility Officer. Photo by Jessie Casson.
Jonathan Sergel, Chief Mobility Officer. Photo by Jessie Casson.

Tell us about the AA’s newly amalgamated Mobility division.

Mobility brought together three quite distinct operating areas: the roadside solutions business, which is Roadservice; Driver Training and Government contracts – so, learner drivers and licensing, though we’re much more than just licensing. And then we’ve got the Motoring Services piece, which is cars, cars and more cars.

The way I talk about it is cars, driving and drivers.

But from a Member perspective, we want mobility to be about more than just cars. Mobility means different things to everyone. In our context, I want it to be seen as products and services that allow our Members to tap into the AA through whichever form of transport they want to use. We’re always going to have a focus on personal car ownership and cars, but we really want to open it up to public transport, even walking, cycling, rideshare, carshare, and all the different forms of vehicle ownership, which may be subscription, leasing or owning.

We’ve dipped out toe in that water. We’ve now got Mevo as a carshare provider. We’re working on a rideshare opportunity. We’re looking at how we can loop in AA Membership with public transport. There’s a lot going on!

From our Members’ perspective we also want to offer information to help them make informed decisions about what their next vehicle might be, with all the pros and cons. Whether that’s an emphasis on emissions, or fuel economy, or drivetrain – we want to be in the space where we’re giving people the information to make informed choices. 

Jonathan Sergel, Chief Mobility Officer. Photo by Jessie Casson.
Jonathan Sergel, Chief Mobility Officer. Photo by Jessie Casson.

What do you enjoy most about your role and the challenges that come with leading such a diverse division during this period of change?

I think you’d probably get a different answer from me every day! It is the diversity of what we do that’s so interesting. We’re everything from an online information provider through to physically touching a car with servicing, to face-to-face interactions doing a driver licence via the Centre Network.

We get the biggest opportunity to deliver on our Members’ expectations on a day-to-day basis. That could be anything from replacing a windscreen, to servicing a vehicle, to checking someone’s potential new pride and joy and saying ‘yes, that’s a good one, you should buy that car.’

AA Roadservice completes approximately a job a minute, every hour of every day. That’s amazing. But we’re also delivering over 100,000 driving lessons each year. We did around 160,000 vehicle inspections last year.

I have never worked in an organisation like this before. Every organisation thinks that they’re unique; we fundamentally are.

What are you most proud of?

I’m probably most proud of the teams that deliver everything we do. There are millions of touchpoints each year, and to achieve the level of customer satisfaction that we do is an incredible thing.

With my role, it’s not up to me – dare I say it – to actually go and do anything: I don’t show up on the side of the road, I don’t inspect the vehicles, I don’t deliver the driving lesson, but my job is to empower the people that do. That’s one of the best things that I get to do.