As part of its ongoing commitment to deliver the type of auction experience customers expect, Manheim bolstered its support team on Monday with a pair of executives.

Manheim named Tony Drummond as vice president of customer experience and Jim Williams as vice president of operations support. Both executives will report to Ashish Bisaria, senior vice president of customer experience.

“Tony and Jim are both true testaments to Manheim’s goal to put the right leaders in place to drive business growth and expand our customer base,” Bisaria said. “These dynamic leaders will use their expertise and experiences to deliver solutions to help our customers succeed. Our customers will benefit from the leadership and insights of Tony and Jim.”

Drummond joined Manheim on Feb. 17 after serving as an associate partner with IBM’s global business services group since 2011. Drummond’s background includes the many aspects and complexities of customer experience and integrated marketing, including CRM strategy definition, business process reengineering, technology integration and the end-to-end customer engagement lifecycle.

Drummond joined IBM in 2001 and held a variety of roles.

During his career, Drummond created solutions that incorporate all customer information from analytics and data to social, mobile and digital interface with customers.  He worked with many organizations to define the “voice of the customer” and translate this into business and organizational strategy to drive new and incremental revenue.

“Tony has a core capability and process strategy for establishing insights through customer data and analytics, and then translating that into business process change,” Bisaria said. “Tony believes that the foundational building blocks of customer value are data, process and CRM tools that bring the insights to life.”

Williams, who joined Manheim on Feb. 24, was responsible for strategic development with premium retail services in his previous role. 

Prior to joining premium retail services, Williams served in a variety of roles at Best Buy, including senior director of sales and operations and vice president of sales development.

At Best Buy, Williams’ operational and sales responsibility included four key businesses: computing, digital imaging, MP3 and services which accounted for $20 billion in revenue during the time he managed it. The primary goal of this function was to develop operational strategies to improve customer experience while driving out cost and optimizing operations.

Before joining the sales development team at Best Buy, Williams was responsible for the Eastern half of Best Buy’s Geek Squad services business where he led an organization of more than 10,000 people.

“Jim is an innovator with the courage and conviction to constantly improve, and he does this in a way that adds value to the business, “Bisaria said. “He has deep experience with building customer relationships and implementing strategies.”

Manheim Detroit to Host Arbor Day Clean Up

In an effort to clean up and preserve the environment around Manheim Detroit, a group of more than 100 employees from the Carlton, Mich., operating location will take part in an Arbor Day cleanup event on Friday from 2 to 5 p.m.

The company highlighted The group will volunteer to collect trash and debris on the grounds of 200-acre Manheim Detroit property, as well as along the property’s fence lines and in the adjacent wetland and farm field areas near the auction, which is located at 600 Will Carlton Road.

“It is always exciting when employees want to do their part to make a difference in the community,” Manheim Detroit general manager JD Daniels said.

An eight-member conservation committee, which includes members from several auction departments, is planning more events for later this year, including a second cleanup of the Civil War cemetery on the grounds of Manheim Detroit and a flower-planting event in May. Employees held a clean-up day at the cemetery last summer.

While Daniels hopes this volunteer event will help his employees build their community spirit, he hopes they have fun as well.

“We have a lot of fence line area to cover here, so we can really have an effect on keeping our community clean,” Daniels said. “Our employees will not only help preserve our environment, but they will have some fun in the process. We will have a friendly competition to see which department can collect the most trash, with the winning team collecting prizes.”

In addition to this conservation effort, Manheim Detroit added energy-efficient lightning throughout its facility last year and plans to add more energy-efficient solutions later this year.

U.S. House Member Coming to Manheim Riverside

U.S. Rep. Mark Takano announced that Manheim Riverside will be the 100th business for his “100 Business” tour, which began last year. 

Takano, a California Democrat whose district includes Riverside, Calif., will tour the facility on Tuesday and meet with Scott Hurst, market vice president for Manheim’s southern California market, Christopher Brown, general manager for Manheim Riverside and Karyn Wrye, senior director of Manheim’s government affairs.

“I am proud to announce that Manheim Riverside will be the 100th business that I will visit for my ‘100 Businesses’ tour,” Takano said. “The Inland Empire has been hit particularly hard during The Great Recession, with the unemployment rate peaking at 15% and one in every fourteen homes in the region being foreclosed on. With that said, fixing our local economy is a top priority of mine. This tour allowed me to talk directly with the business owners and their employees and learn what Congress can do to accelerate the recovery.”

“Manheim Riverside is honored and excited to be the 100th Business that Congressman Mark Takano visits, as he completes his ‘100 Business’ tour,” Hurst said. “With our auction operation and our newly-opened service center, we are extremely proud to contribute to the growth of our industry, our local economy and our community.”