Dealer Tire, a Cleveland-based company that helps manufacturers and dealers grow their tire and light maintenance business, named Andrean Horton as partner and chief legal officer.
In her role, Dealer Tire said Horton will proactively advise on the company’s growth strategy from a legal perspective, identify potential risks and create innovative solutions and assist in setting and implementing the company’s overall governance and policies.
According to a news release, Horton will start on Tuesday and report directly to Dealer Tire partner and chief executive officer Scott Mueller.
Horton brings more than 20 years of experience to her role at Dealer Tire, specializing in providing counsel and leadership to growth-oriented companies.
Most recently, Horton served as chief legal officer at Myers Industries, where she also acted as interim president and CEO during a period of leadership transition. Horton has held similar senior leadership roles in multiple organizations, including A. Schulman, where she worked for eight years.
“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Andrean to the Dealer Tire team, where she will serve as an ambassador and advocate for our values, our people and our organization,” Mueller said in the news release.
“Andrean has a unique ability and expertise to lead dynamic teams, tackle new opportunities and provide sage, strategic counsel, which will help support our organization’s future growth and long-term success,” Mueller continued.
As Dealer Tire’s chief legal officer, the company explained Horton will lead the legal team and be responsible for the organization’s general and commercial legal matters including, compliance, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, employment, contracts and negotiations, government relations and other general business legal issues.
The company added that Horton also will serve as an advisor to the Dealer Tire senior leadership team and the board of directors on a wide range of strategic, tactical and operational issues, pragmatically managing legal risks.
Horton’s professional recognitions include Savoy’s 2018 list of most influential black lawyers and the Ohio Diversity Council’s 2017 Top 12 Business Women Award.
Dealer Tire highlighted Horton also is a dedicated and involved member of the professional and local community, currently serving as director and committee member of the Ohio Bar Liability Insurance Company and trustee and past president of DANCECleveland.
“I am thrilled to be joining the passionate and driven team at Dealer Tire,” Horton said. “Together, we have the incredible opportunity to grow our impact and further the company’s proud legacy and commitments to fairness, accountability, innovation and playing to win.”
Autos Drive America, which represents the U.S. operations of international automakers, reinforced its government affairs team to support the association’s growing advocacy efforts.
On Thursday, Autos Drive America announced two new hires, as Rory Heslington has been named vice president of government affairs and Colton Hotary steps into a newly created role as director of government affairs.
“At a time when our industry is the focus on many policy fronts, I am excited to welcome two new members of our government affairs team,” Autos Drive America president and chief executive officer Jennifer Safavian said in a news release.
“Rory and Colton will be instrumental in building and growing our advocacy efforts on important trade, electrification, and workforce development issues for our association,” Safavian continued.
Widely recognized as a trade policy expert, Autos Drive America highlighted that Heslington previously served as international trade policy advisor to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Joining the Finance Committee in 2015, he advised on international trade policy that included trade agreement negotiations, supply chains, e-commerce, and customs.
Prior to joining the committee, Heslington spent 13 years in the private sector managing market research studies and working for a leadership development training firm.
Autos Drive America mentioned Hotary brings a strong background in legislative and regulatory issues at the domestic and international arenas on various issues involving autonomous driving systems, international trade, and supply chains.
Previously, Hotary was director for global government affairs at FLIR Systems. He also spent five years with Public Strategies Washington, handling a portfolio of manufacturing, transportation, international affairs, financial services and trade issues.
Autos Drive America said Heslington and Hotary will spearhead the Association’s legislative and policy agendas.
“Autos Drive America’s mission is to strengthen the U.S. automotive industry by advocating for trade and investment policies that expand jobs, trade and economic growth in America,” the organization said.
One of the previous honorees included in Auto Remarketing’s annual Remarketing & Used-Car Industry’s 40 Under 40 listing is continuing to forge a successful career in the wholesale space.
On Wednesday, XLerate Group Auctions announced the promotion of Kelly McAllister to vice president of digital strategy and sales.
“Digital buying and selling are having us focus on where one of our core strengths needs to be, and that is human resource investment,” said Cam Hitchcock, chief executive officer of XLerate Group Auctions.
“By promoting Kelly McAllister, I feel like we are putting ourselves in a prime position to continue to lead independent auctions in the digital marketplace,” Hitchcock continued in a news release.
Senior vice president of sales Pat Dudash added, “Kelly continues to grow XLerate’s online platform presence. By investing in the right people at the right geographic locations, we have immensely grown our business in the online digital space.”
After initially coming to XLerate Group’s Texas Lone Star Auto Auction in 2013, McAllister joined the XLerate Group corporate team in 2015; the year before he was a part of the 40 Under 40 honorees.
McAllister also had a 10-year stint with Manheim, working in the dealer sales group, emphasizing mobile auctions and OVE. McAllister then went to Dealertrack, where he worked with and trained hundreds of dealerships around the country on digital vehicle procurement. He is a charter member of the OVE product board and has overseen the most extensive independent auction growth year-over-year with SmartAuction, which has landed six XLerate Group Auctions in the SmartAuction Top 10.
Reacting to the latest executive promotion, McAllister said, “I welcome this challenge and opportunity as we continue to grow our digital platform sales. And with the addition of Liquid Motors to XLerate’s toolbox, I feel like we can go to the next level.”
When another month starts next week, IAA will have a new executive vice president and chief financial officer.
IAA announced on Tuesday that Susan Healy will join the company on Sept. 1 to serve in those roles. According to a news release, Healy will succeed Vance Johnston, who is leaving IAA to pursue other opportunities.
The company highlighted Healy is a finance and Wall Street veteran with more than 25 years of experience driving growth and operational improvement at a number of highly respected, multinational companies.
During the past four-and-a-half years, Healy served as the senior vice president of finance for $20 billion market capitalization beauty retailer Ulta Beauty, where she led corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and analysis, treasury and procurement.
Prior to Ulta Beauty, Healy was a strategic advisor to early-stage, venture-backed companies in the consumer, technology, health care and renewable energy sectors. She also held the role of CFO at apparel retailer Lands’ End, where she led the finance, accounting, legal, procurement and IT teams.
After earning her J.D. from Harvard Law School, Healy began her career at global investment firm Goldman Sachs, where she executed over $25 billion of mergers and acquisitions transactions and $6 billion in financings, including six IPOs.
“We are very pleased to welcome Susan to our senior leadership team,” IAA chief executive officer and president John Kett said in the news release. “Susan is a proven leader with significant finance, strategy and Wall Street experience that, along with her strong measurement and data philosophy, make her an excellent addition to our leadership team.
“We are excited about the critical role she will play in driving sustainable growth and profitability at IAA, and I look forward to working closely with her as the company enters its next phase of digital transformation, expansion and innovation,” Kett continued.
Kett also mentioned the work by Johnston, who served as CFO during a critical junction in company history.
“We also want to thank Vance for his significant contributions, particularly his work helping to transition IAA to an independent public company following its spinoff in 2019,” Kett said. “We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”
TradePending, which provides vehicle valuation and merchandising software to car dealers, said Wednesday it has added former CDK Global and AutoNation executive Ron Frey and AutoHook founder David Metter to its board.
Frey — who in his current role as principal at RL Frey, Inc. is working as a business and transaction advisor, automotive strategist and investor — was previously executive vice president and chief strategy officer at CDK Global and chief strategy officer at AutoNation.
Metter founded AutoHook, a company acquired by Urban Science in 2015, and has been the chief marketing officer of MileOne Auto Group and director of sales at Autobase.
“Ron and David are both familiar with the TradePending story and our passionate management team,” TradePending chief executive officer Brice Engler said in a news release. “Adding them as board members is a natural fit and a great milestone for our company.”
Frey said in the release: “TradePending is at one of the most exciting times in their company history. In seven years, they've become the authority on vehicle valuations, built and launched four successful products, and are poised for even greater growth. I'm pleased to join the team to be able to share my successes and lessons learned to help them continue their growth.”
Added Metter: “I’ve known the TradePending team for years. I’ve always loved their approach to simplifying the automotive process for dealers and consumers alike, and loved following along from the sidelines. I’m thrilled to be actively involved now in the company's future.”
Quantum5 wants to transform dealership training and bridge the gap between traditional and digital customers.
To help the firm accomplish that goal, the company recently welcomed a new vice president of content strategy who has a background with automakers’ operations in both the U.S. and Canada.
Taking on the role is Terry Staggs, who will build out Quantum5’s content library and work with industry veterans Dave Foy, Sarah Vantine and Jason Frank to harness their knowledge and turn it into engaging training modules for both in-person and virtual training classes.
Staggs brings decades of experience to his new role at Quantum5, previously serving as the programs operations manager at Precision Dynamics International (PDI). While with PDI, Quantum5 highlighted that Staggs successfully planned, developed, implemented and carried out field training initiatives to manufacturers the likes of Nissan USA, Infiniti USA and Nissan Canada.
Quantum5 mentioned that Staggs played an intricate part in the development and delivery of nearly 40 unique, OEM-specific courses designed to increase the business acumen of OEM field representatives.
“Terry’s stellar reputation, deep automotive training expertise, and success in building out the field program while at PDI, is well known and greatly admired within our industry. He will be instrumental as we build out our training content and bring it to dealers across the nation,” said David O’Brien, chief executive officer and co-founder of Quantum5.
“We have the greatest minds in fixed ops on our team, and Staggs will bring his considerable skills to help harness their combined knowledge to increase customer relations, profits and lifetime value for our clients,” O’Brien continued in a news release.
Quantum5 explained that its strategy is to join the power of in-person skills training with backend technology that includes AI learning, gamification and community building to create ongoing proficiency in learners.
As sales and service teams work their way through the different levels of the app, the company said they become better at determining needs and motivations of buyers, delivering value and handling objections. These skills work together to increase both sales and upsell service opportunities, bridging the gap between traditional and digital retail customers,” according to Quantum5.
“The mission of Quantum5, to leave the automotive industry better than they found it and give teams the skills to engage and relate to each individual buyer, aligns with my personal goals for the industry,” Staggs said.
“I am thrilled to be on the team and ready to roll out the impressive industry knowledge of Quantum5’s leaders to the next generation of automotive retail teams,” he went on to say.
For more information on Quantum5 and how it can help digitally transform your sales and service teams through training, visit www.quantum5.ai.
Along with finalizing a commercial agreement with Inmar Intelligence, Modal, which that provides e-commerce tools to dealers and brands, this week announced its newly appointed chief executive officer.
Taking over the role is an executive who already has been with the company since last August, as chief operating officer Sameer Bhalla has been chosen to be CEO.
According to a news release, Modal founder Aaron Krane will continue as executive chairman.
Modal highlighted that Bhalla has been instrumental in driving the company’s product, engineering and corporate strategy. The company noted that Bhalla possesses more than a decade of high-growth technology expertise as both an exited founder and growth investor, during which he has spearheaded all facets in a technology company’s lifecycle.
Most recently, Bhalla built and exited San Francisco-based Swoop, a vertical SaaS roadside-assistance platform, for which the company raised $3 million in seed capital and scaled up to more than $100 million in gross transaction value and more than 40 employees. Post-acquisition, Bhalla served on the senior executive staff of Agero, an enterprise provider of digital driver-assistance services.
“Since joining the company a year ago, Sameer has been playing a pivotal leadership role, and it’s great to finally make it official by announcing him as Modal’s new CEO,” Krane said in the news release.
“His deep expertise in operations, team building, and partnership development throughout the automotive ecosystem, starting with Inmar Intelligence, will continue to be a tremendous asset to the company’s growth,” Krane continued.
And the company certainly is in growth mode having landed the relationship with Inmar Intelligence.
Modal’s current automotive ecommerce solution encompasses the entire buying process, including trade-in, financing and final purchase documents.
Combining those capabilities with Inmar Intelligence’s deep experience with consumer packaged goods and retail brands to segment and target individual audiences, the companies said their agreement will empower dealers to increase overall ROI by seizing the digital transformation of traditional vehicle buying.
The companies went on to mention their enhanced technology can allow dealers to segment consumers to secure highly qualified leads, deliver personalized messages to engage customers, and increase conversions.
“The COVID crisis has pushed online car-buying to unprecedented levels, and that consumer behavior is here to stay,” said Rob Weisberg, senior vice president of automotive at Inmar Intelligence.
“In working with Modal, we are leveraging aggregated purchase data and AI to drive more qualified visitors to the dealer websites and improve visitor-to-buyer conversion. Simply put, dealers will sell more cars online by driving more customers through the sales funnel at a higher rate,” Weisberg continued in another news release.
Flow Automotive already has enjoyed the potential gains the agreement Inmar Intelligence and Modal could generate.
“The collaboration between Inmar Intelligence and Modal has transformed our Flow Express digital retail experience into a true profit center. Online as a channel now represents over 50% of our sales and over 800 customers a month utilize Modal,” said Flow Automotive president Eric Flow, who is enjoying a 348% return on his investment, according to the other news release.
“This technology has allowed us to remain nimble throughout the pandemic, providing a safe contact-free buying experience that our customers expect, and we are thrilled with our success so far,” Flow went on to say.
Now as CEO, Bhalla is looking to create more success stories like Flow Automotive through the collaboration with Inmar Intelligence.
“Under Aaron’s strong leadership in an ever-consolidating market, we’ve proudly remained one of the few independent and privately held key players, experiencing an 800 percent increase in online transactions year-on-year, which Inmar Intelligence will accelerate,” Bhalla said.
“By leveraging Inmar’s segmentation, targeting, and lifecycle-attribution capabilities, we’re catapulting analytics to the forefront. More than a transaction, it’s connecting with the right customer at the right time, and we are already seeing spikes in order conversion,” he went on to say.
As part of its "50-50 strategic plan" — through which the company aims to reach $50 billion in revenues and $50 in earnings per share over five years — Lithia & Driveway said Tuesday it has expanded the senior leadership in its marketing department.
That includes the hiring of a chief marketing officer.
Appointed to the role of senior vice president and CMO is Marguerite Celeste, who was Lithia’s director of creative services from 2011-2013 and whose background also includes time with NBC Universal, DreamWorks Animation and The Walt Disney Company.
"With an established knowledge of LAD's mission growth powered by people and its core business values, Ms. Celeste embodies the insights and innovative acumen necessary to continue to reimagine and catapult LAD to the next level of delighting the consumer. Her strong background in brand management, voice of customer, operational excellence, and creativity will add a vibrant voice to the company's vision to provide our consumers with personal transportation solutions wherever, whenever, and however they desire," Lithia president and chief executive officer Bryan DeBoer said in a news release.
Lithia also moved Tom Dobry to the role of vice president of marketing as part of this strategy. Dobry’s role will entail "elevating and expanding LAD's traditional business and 260 local brands, in complementary fashion with the Driveway e-commerce channel," Lithia said in a release.
"By doing so, Mr. Dobry will concentrate his more than 11 years and experience of supporting our stores, operations teams and critical acquisition growth," said DeBoer.
United Road wants to be agile and nimble when it comes to being a provider of finished vehicle transport logistics in North America.
And the company’s newest executive has experience working with major automotive industry brands that needed those attributes.
This week, United Road president and chief executive officer Mark Anderson announced the appointment of Nick Cole as senior vice president of sales and marketing.
Cole most recently served as senior vice president of sales for Local Motors in Chandler, Ariz., where he was responsible for bringing “Olli,” an electric, 3-D printed autonomous shuttle, to market.
Previously, Cole served as president of Avis Budget Group’s EMEA Zipcar car-sharing division and earlier as president and CEO of Daimler AG’s Car2go app-driven short-term car rental business in North America.
According to a news release, Cole’s primary focus will be to maintain United Road’s position in the OEM sector, expand the volume in remarketed vehicles and increase heavy Class-8 vehicle and fleet moves.
“Nick has deep experience in developing a value proposition, in fostering lasting relationships with customers that will ensure United Road brings value-based solutions to market,” Anderson said in the news release. “While OEMs will continue to be a focus of United Road, Nick’s first charge is to lead our growth in the remarketed sector where we plan to double our market share over the next two years and grow United Road’s Team DriveAway heavy equipment hauling business.
“Disruptions caused by Covid and the chip shortage have created unexpected opportunities for growth particularly in remarketed vehicles,” Anderson continued.
“United Road’s mission is to be the supplier and employer of choice in finished vehicle logistics. Nick’s diverse experience in mobility, rental, OEMs, fleet and commercial vehicles, heavy equipment, electric and autonomous vehicles brings a unique perspective to United Road’s team,” Anderson went on to say.
Cole sees an opportunity for further diversification and growth in United Road’s customer base and solutions.
“The logistics industry is evolving, innovating right under our feet,” Cole said. “United Road is forward-thinking. Agile. Our culture is to partner with our customers and carriers to deliver technology-driven solutions that drive quality and efficiency. I am excited and energized by the road ahead.”
Konect Ai wants to be a leader in automotive artificial intelligence, so the company is turning its leadership over to an executive whose professional career includes stints with Cox Automotive, eCarList and Dealer.com
On Friday, Konect Ai named Jerry Salerno as president as the company looks to expand further into the North American automotive industry.
According to a news release, Konect Ai has increased its workforce in order to accommodate the demand for its user-friendly artificial intelligence for dealer lead management and data reengagement.
Most recently, Salerno was the director of enterprise dealer partnerships for Cox Automotive.
Prior to joining Cox Automotive, Salerno was instrumental in the start-up of eCarList, which was acquired by Dealertrack. He then later worked at Dealer.com.
“I have been extremely fortunate to work with some of the most innovative dealers and technologies over the course of my career. I truly believe Konect Ai is the next big thing in automotive,” Salerno said in the news release.
Konect Ai indicated that Salerno will be leading a team of coders, graphic designers, sales consultants, data collectors and content creators.
Konect Ai is looking to continue client successes like the Henson Brand Dealerships, located in Madisonville, Texas, that has been using the company’s products for seven months.
“The use of the system has been awesome for us. Their tool is easy to use so you know what leads to focus on and which ones not to. The follow-up and engagement have been great,” said Eric Barbosa, managing partner of Henson Brand Dealerships.
“We personally call the team, and the support and interaction has been amazing. They have changed our game as far as follow up; our follow up has increased by about 30% since having that tool, and I think that has to do with their AI. As soon as we know the customer is engaged, we call them,” Barbosa continued in the news release.
For more information, visit www.konectai.com.
