Winnebago Names Simone Silva VP of Aftermarket, Enterprise CX

Winnebago Industries has named Simone Silva as its new Vice President of Aftermarket and Enterprise Customer Experience. The appointment brings the company's aftermarket service operations and its broader customer experience function under a single executive role, signaling a structural shift in how the RV maker intends to manage post-purchase support and service quality.

The move consolidates responsibilities that, at many manufacturers, are typically split between parts-and-service divisions and a separate customer experience or brand team. Combining them under one leader suggests Winnebago is treating aftermarket support — parts, service, warranty and dealer-facing operations — as a core lever of overall customer experience rather than a back-office function.

For an original equipment manufacturer, the aftermarket relationship is often where brand loyalty is won or lost: owners interact with service and parts long after the initial purchase, and friction in that experience directly shapes repurchase and referral behavior. Elevating this to a dedicated enterprise-level VP role indicates that leadership sees service and support as strategic, not just operational.

The appointment also reflects a broader trend among durable-goods and vehicle manufacturers to unify fragmented customer touchpoints — sales, dealer network, service, and digital self-service — under single accountable leadership. Organizations that make this structural change are typically trying to reduce handoff friction between departments and create a more consistent ownership experience across the product lifecycle.

Titles that merge "aftermarket" and "enterprise customer experience" are a tell: companies are finally admitting that service and support aren't a cost center bolted onto the sales funnel — they're the funnel, extended over years of ownership. The interesting question isn't who got the job; it's whether the org chart underneath actually changes.

Most companies that create a role like this stop at the title and leave the incentives untouched — dealers still measured on units sold, service techs still measured on ticket volume, with no shared metric tying the two to lifetime satisfaction. The real signal to watch for isn't the appointment itself but whether Winnebago restructures how aftermarket performance is measured and rewarded. If service and parts teams start being evaluated on the same customer outcomes as sales, that's transformation. If not, this is a reporting-line change wearing a strategy costume.