CARY, N.C. -

Auto Remarketing is recognizing the 2021 Women in Remarketing honorees in the March issue of the magazine, and will be posting Q&As with each of these outstanding leaders on the website.

Next up is Deepthi Uppalapati, who is the strategy & analytics leader for remarketing at Capital One.

Auto Remarketing: What do you enjoy most about working in the remarketing industry? But, also, what aspect(s) of the business would you change — and how?

Deepthi Uppalapati: Reimagining remarketing strategy for our customers’ sake gives me immense satisfaction and excitement to drive change. Any improvement we can achieve in the remarketing process to help increase the possible value for the repossessed collateral will have a direct impact on our customers by lowering the deficiency balance on their auto loan.

This also ties directly to Capital One’s mission of helping customers by bringing ingenuity, simplicity, and humanity to banking, which provides motivation for me and my team to make a meaningful impact.

I also enjoy how we leverage data and artificial intelligence in our decision making to enable our remarketing team and processes to be as effective and efficient as possible. One aspect of streamlining the remarketing industry is to have consistency and accuracy in the end-to-end process.

For various legacy and business reasons, the remarketing operational processes, systems, and data are highly manual and not consistent across different players. As we optimize these processes in being more efficient, we need to consider building intelligent, technology driven digital solutions that are consistent and accurate. For example, the current vehicle inspection and condition report process is heavily dependent on the condition report writer.

However, leveraging image recognition and artificial intelligence to assess the level of damages could help improve the accuracy and efficiency of the process, thereby leading to quick turnaround in repairs.

This will also help enable consistency in damage estimates across different auction vendors.

AR: Describe a time when you were either a mentor or a mentee, and how that has shaped your career.

DU: I have been fortunate to have many strong, confident and fearless leaders in my personal and professional life as mentors.

They have challenged and encouraged me to think differently by asking difficult questions and be more of a servant leader as I grow in my career. My career has evolved over time and was nurtured by great leaders who believed in my potential and provided real-time thoughtful feedback.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten is to always take the long-term approach in decision-making, working back from an ideal vision. I’ve taken that to heart, and it has helped bring in the right perspective for many business and personal decisions time and again.

Whether it was through connecting me with someone, providing career guidance, being a thought-partner, delivering thoughtful coaching or mentoring, or pushing me to stretch for that next challenge or role, I’m filled with a deep sense of gratitude for the village that has supported my career. I certainly ensure I pay it forward in shaping the growth and career path for my mentees by sharing my learning and experiences over the years.

AR: What is the top trend/storyline in the remarketing industry that you're watching this year?

DU: Due to COVID-19, we saw big disruption in the remarketing industry in 2020 with nearly all auctions going completely digital to keep everyone safe. Overall, it created an opportunity to advance digital tools and online auctions in a relatively short time span, resulting in a smooth transition during an unprecedented time. As the pandemic unfolds, I’d like to see how the auctions leverage technology and AI-based tools to further drive operational efficiencies.