Christina Potts said she feels “like I’m coming home.”
America’s Auto Auction announced that Potts has been named the company’s national client accounts manager. A native Texan with 15 years of auction industry experience, the company highlighted Potts brings with her a strong background in operations, fleet/lease management and client relationships.
“We are so fortunate to welcome Christina Potts back to America’s Auto Auction,” said America’s national sales director Tammy Swofford, mentioning Potts was part of the inaugural team at America’s Auto Auction Houston when the facility opened in 2015.
Potts worked at that location for four years as both transportation and fleet/lease manager.
“Christina is sure to be strong addition to our management team, particularly in this unique and challenging time in our industry,” Swofford continued in a news release. “She’ll be a great support to America’s Auto Auction on a national level and a great asset to our 23 auction locations.”
Potts began her career in the industry as a transportation coordinator before signing on with America’s Houston to head its transportation department and serve as the fleet/lease admin manager.
Following another two years as fleet/lease manager and commercial accounts manager in the Houston area, she now returns to America’s.
“America’s Auto Auction is a great company, a great work family, and I feel like I’m coming home,” Potts said. “I’d missed the level of customer service that is such an integral part of America’s operations.
“As long as I’ve been in the industry, I’ve focused maintaining strong connections with customers,” she continued. “I’m proud to be part of a company that is not only successful and growing, but is centered on people and relationships.”
Additional information about all of the America’s Auto Auction facilities can be found at www.americasautoauction.com.
Two months after ACERTUS named a new chief executive officer, the tech-driven automotive logistics and services company this week announced the professional who now will be serving in the newly created position of chief revenue officer.
Tasked with leading global sales operations, driving revenue growth and supporting ACERTUS’ ongoing mission to be a leader in automotive logistics is Paul Malone.
“We have built a high-velocity, world-class sales organization and with Malone at the helm, we are well-positioned to enter our next phase of growth,”ACERTUS chief executive officer Trent Broberg said in a news release.
“A proven leader, Paul brings a track record of building and managing high-growth sales organizations along with deep transportation technology experience which made him uniquely positioned for this critical role,” Broberg continued.
From this leadership position, the company reiterated that Malone will oversee global sales efforts, identify new revenue streams, partnerships and opportunities to augment ACERTUS’ growth.
This appointment comes at a time of record expansion for ACERTUS. The company was recently recognized by Inc. for a second year in a row as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.
ACERTUS also highlighted Malone excels at leading teams through major transitions including acquisitions, IPOs and rapid growth, bringing more than 20 years of logistics experience at leading companies such as CargoMatic, Truckstop.com and Swift.
“ACERTUS provides unique and unparalleled value to the automotive industry which is currently in the midst of significant disruption. Our comprehensive service offering, proprietary technology solutions and unrivaled focus on the customer have proven to be a winning proposition,” Malone said. “I look forward to further accelerating our customer success and global growth.”
Coinciding with the company saying it has reached record-breaking levels of dealer enrollment on its automated instant wholesale vehicle trade platform, CarOffer appointed one of its existing executives as chief operating officer.
According to a news release distributed on Friday, CarOffer made the move effective immediately to install Scott Johnston as COO.
In his new role, the company said Johnston will oversee all CarOffer operations, customer service and support. Additionally, he’ll continue to manage and execute strategic initiatives of the company, ensuring resources are matched to product and operational growth goals.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Scott for several years and his expertise and insights have helped fuel our successful growth trajectory,” CarOffer founder and chief executive officer Bruce Thompson said in the news release.
“In the more than 25 years of starting and running companies, I’ve never been around a better operator. He deserves a tremendous amount of credit for what CarOffer has become and will be in the future,” Thompson continued.
The company noted that Johnston previously served two years as CarOffer’s chief strategy and partnerships officer, where he played a critical role in managing operational activities and overseeing third-party partnerships, as well as the company’s most recent partnership with CarGurus.
Before the launch of CarOffer, Johnston served as vice president of operations for Pearl Technology Holdings, also led by Thompson, and oversaw the rollout of the Pearl products VehicleXchange, Pearl Proximity, ShowroomXpress and Pearl360.
Prior to that juncture, Johnston was with CDK Global for 22 years where he held multiple leadership roles in implementation and business operations.
“I am very excited for this opportunity. I believe CarOffer truly differentiates how dealers buy and sell vehicles,” Johnston said. “It’s a privilege to work with such a talented team of associates who are dedicated to helping our dealer customers become even more successful.”
Johnston takes over as COO during an exciting juncture in CarOffer’s existence that’s only been since August 2019.
CarOffer highlighted that dealer enrollment in the platform — which can enable dealers to buy and sell vehicles using real-time instant offers — totaled more than 1,400 new dealer rooftops in March and April, the highest level of enrollment over any two-month period to date.
The company explained the enrollment figure reflects that CarOffer and the applicable dealer have signed an enrollment agreement to participate on the CarOffer platform and CarOffer has entered such dealer’s rooftops in its sales management system.
Thompson attributed the growth in part to a pandemic-fueled rise in pre-owned demand coupled with new-vehicle microchip shortages.
“The unprecedented demand for used vehicles is a constant source of stress for every dealer today. Dealers struggle with how to source used vehicles beyond their local market and with operational efficiency to maximize profitability,” Thompson said in the same news release.
“The CarOffer platform gives dealers access to used vehicles not just in their vicinity, which is often limited, but regionally and even nationally. Beyond the number of dealers jumping onto our platform, our transaction volume has increased an average of more than 50% over the last two months, and May is off to an even better start,” Thompson continued, as the company mentioned that transaction volume includes dealer-to-dealer transactions, OfferGuard, and 45-day guarantees.
“The more dealers on the platform that are buying and selling, the more options there are to acquire used inventory and offload aged vehicles. We are thrilled to offer shelter in the ongoing used inventory struggle,” Thompson went on to say.
CarOffer reiterated that its platform is geared to works much like an online stock trading application, mimicking the 24/7 ability to set buy or sell preferences and let the automated system source vehicles or buyers.
Here is how that’s supposed to function:
• To buy vehicles, dealers can place limit orders and quotas for units they wish to acquire through a user-friendly interface that allows them to set desired pricing, equipment, mileage and condition of the vehicles they want to purchase; the automated technology fulfills the orders seamlessly.
• To sell vehicles, dealers can log in to see pending live offers on their inventory units and accept offers they want and check out via a familiar shopping cart checkout process. The system automatically can place binding offers on hundreds of thousands of vehicles each day, creating the first instant liquidity trading platform for vehicles.
“All CarOffer dealer customers benefit from a streamlined logistical support process that includes the handling of transportation, titling and inspections all delivered on one bill of sale,” the company said. “This facilitates nationwide trading to maximize inventory selection and efficiency.”
ADESA said Tuesday it has named new general managers at several of its auction locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Those auctions and their respective new GMs are:
ADESA Pittsburgh: Carly Bishop
ADESA East Tennessee: Terry Costner
ADESA Nashville: Ryan Hellemn
ADESA Mercer: David Skiver
ADESA Houston: Brian Wetzel
ADESA Moncton: James Murphy
Regarding the final move in that series, Murphy is already the GM at ADESA Halifax and now takes on the dual role of heading up both that auction and ADESA Moncton.
“These are proven leaders with diverse operations and customer service backgrounds that I know will drive success at their sites and across ADESA,” ADESA chief operating officer Srisu Subrahmanyam.
“As our business, industry and customers continue to digitally evolve, the support and synergy of our physical locations is becoming even more important,” he said. “We’re excited to have these new general managers on board helping to continue bridging the two worlds together.”
CarLotz has named former Amazon Web Services executive William Vallier as senior vice president of technology, describing him as a digital transformation veteran.
“His innovative thinking and strong execution skills will strengthen the company’s technology and systems capabilities as we execute on the most dramatic period of growth in our company’s history,” CarLotz co-founder and chief executive officer Michael Bor said in a news release.
Vallier, who joined the company in March, has worked in emerging technology for more than 20 years in the hospitality industry. CarLotz said Vallier will use that experience to help make CarLotz an even more customer-centric brand.
His experience includes identifying and implementing technology to boost business innovation, brand recognition and company revenue. He also previously led large-scale projects and managed internal and external stakeholder relationships for companies.
Vallier most recently served as practice manager at Amazon Web Services. In that post, he supported the National Institutes of Health in creating and implementing a notification system to track COVID-19 exposure.
He also led machine learning and cloud technologies projects with NASA. In a previous post at Ernst & Young, Vallier oversaw Royal Caribbean International’s implementation of single sign on, booking, guest profiles, and identity and access management for web, android and iOS applications. He also worked with global media and entertainment companies at Slalom Consulting and created Accenture’s “Next Generation Consumer Experience.”
He is the owner and author of various national and international patents as primary and secondary inventor.
Vallier will report to and work with chief technology officer Dan Valerian, who has worked on CarLotz technology for 10 years.
CarLotz is excited to have Vallier on the team, Bor said.
“Working with Dan, who has architected our systems and technology, I am confident that Bill’s extensive technology experience with hospitality, entertainment and media companies will create even more thoughtful and seamless experiences for CarLotz sellers and buyers,” Bor said.
“As a digital-first company and a category innovator, CarLotz will continue to lead the way by delivering new experiences to our guests that they wouldn’t expect from a used car company,” Vallier said.
He also said, “In partnership with Dan and the rest of the leadership team, we will continue to disrupt the used vehicle industry and consignment-to-retail model even further by leaning into emerging technologies. I am honored to join a growing team that’s willing to try new things and push boundaries in an industry ripe for change.”
Vroom has added two members to its board of directors, both with extensive backgrounds in the financial industry.
The new members are Paula Pretlow and Frederick Terrell, and Vroom chief executive officer, Paul Hennessy describes them as “two highly qualified executives with notable leadership experience at some of the world’s largest financial institutions.”
Pretlow is former senior vice president of The Capital Group, a $2.4 trillion privately held investment management firm. At that company, she led the public fund business development and client relationship group. For 10 years, she was responsible for large client relationships.
Before serving in that role, Pretlow worked for Montgomery Asset Management and Blackrock (formerly Barclays Global Investors). Her additional investment industry work includes fixed-income sales with First Boston Corp. (now Credit Suisse) in addition to work as a portfolio manager with RIEM (now AXA/Rosenberg).
Her career started at Wells Fargo Bank before she moved to GATX Capital. At GATX, she helped lead creation of a secondary market in capital equipment leases and portfolios.
Pretlow is an independent trustee and audit committee chair for Cion Ares Diversified Credit Fund, a member of the Ares Dynamic Credit Allocation Fund board of directors and audit committee, and a member of the Bitwise Industries board of directors. She currently serves on the board of trustees of The Kresge Foundation, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation and Northwestern University.
She is a 2017 Fellow of Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute. Pretlow received the Aiming High Award from Legal Momentum, a legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls. She occasionally co-teaches design thinking at the d.school at Stanford.
As for Terrell, his financial services sector career has spanned more than 25 years. Currently, he serves as a senior adviser with Centerbridge Partners, L.P., a multi-strategy private investment management firm.
Terrell is the former executive vice chairman of investment banking and capital markets at Credit Suisse, the global investment bank. He later served as senior adviser for that company. He was a member of Credit Suisse’s Investment Banking Committee, Managing Director Promotion Committee and the board of trustees of the Credit Suisse Americas Foundation.
Before his time at Credit Suisse, Terrell was founder and managing partner of Provender Capital Group LLC, which made private-equity investments in emerging growth-oriented companies.
He began his career as an associate with the First Boston Corp. in 1983.
Terrell currently serves on the board of directors of The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and ViacomCBS Inc. He is a former board of directors member of the New York Life Insurance Company, Wellchoice, Inc. (formerly Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield) and Carver Bancorp Inc., where he served as chairman of the board. He is currently a member of the investment committee of the Rockefeller Foundation and a board of directors member of Mobility Capital Finance Inc., the Partnership Fund for New York City, and Planet Word Museum.
He is a member of the Economic Club of New York and the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former member of the University Council of Yale University and board of advisors for the Yale School of Management and chairman of the board of the Coro Foundation, New York Leadership Center.
Talking about Pretlow and Terrell, Hennessy said, “We welcome their experience and guidance as we continue to scale Vroom’s business.”
CarGurus made a move Wednesday to further strengthen the digital retail segment of its business.
The online auto marketplace announced it has hired former Amazon executive Brad Rosenfeld to run its digital retail offerings.
As executive vice president of digital retail commercialization, Rosenfeld will head up CarGurus’ “path to further developing and monetizing its digital retail business,” the company said in a news release.
Rosenfeld was at Amazon for close to a decade, working in leadership roles dealing with building and scaling ecommerce businesses. His specialized in aiding brick-and-mortar businesses with digital transformation, something car dealers can certainly relate to these days.
“I am elated to welcome Brad to the CarGurus team,” CarGurus president and chief operating officer Sam Zales said in a news release. “Brad’s extensive expertise in helping brick-and-mortar retail businesses into the digital world will be a fantastic addition to CarGurus as we create more digital retail capabilities to help consumers and dealers buy and sell vehicles online.
“His proven track record in innovating new e-commerce business models will be tremendously valuable as we continue to advance our digital retail capabilities,” Zales said.
Added Rosenfeld, “CarGurus’ success lies in being on the cutting edge and keeping its finger on the pulse of what matters most in automotive retail, including providing digital retail offerings that connect its high-converting consumer audience with the largest dealer network in the market.
“I am thrilled to join such an impressive team at such an important juncture in automotive retail, and I look forward to working with CarGurus’ employees, dealership customers and industry partners on scaling the company’s digital retail product lineup,” he said.
CarGurus continues to build on its digital retail offerings to connect consumers who want to buy online with its dealership partners. That includes launching a Finance in Advance product that allows consumers to go online and pre-qualify for financing.
Additionally, the company is providing early access for dealers on CarGurus Convert, which lets consumers go online to estimate trade-in values, select F&I products and pre-quality for financing prior to connecting with a dealer.
ACERTUS appointed Jen Cole and Eash Sundaram to its board of directors, with the company’s chief executive officer saying they bring extensive technology, automotive, logistics and supply chain experience.
The addition of Cole and Sundaram to its board can help ACERTUS expand technology and e-commerce services driving its marketplace strategy, said the company, which is a tech-driven automotive logistics provider.
Cole is president of Sincro, leading a global organization that delivers technology-enabled digital marketing services to the automotive industry. She was previously senior vice president of digital at CDK Global.
Sundaram, who previously served as chief digital and technology officer for JetBlue Airways, currently serves as an operating executive of Tailwind Capital, ACERTUS’s equity partner, and currently serves on the board of organizations such as SolarWinds, WESCO Distribution and SITA.
For JetBlue, Sundaram was responsible for the airline's Innovation Hub, digital systems, data science, and technology strategies, which served to boost the customer and crewmember experience.
“[Cole and Sundaram] share our commitment to innovation; their proven ability to effectively scale operations and technology solutions makes them truly valuable additions to our board as we continue to provide a connected marketplace for our customers, carriers and drivers.” ACERTUS chief executive officer Trent Broberg said in a news release.
Chad Caswell is the new chief executive officer for connected-car platform Zubie, with Caswell saying he will work toward an increased focus on growing Zubie’s technology and software capabilities and leading the company’s growth in the rental and fleet markets.
Caswell replaces former CEO Gary Tucker, who will become a consultant focused on strategy and business growth.
Zubie said that as chief technology officer for four years, Caswell has helped shape and evolve Zubie’s software platform.
As for Tucker, Zubie said he helped transform the business away from consumers and toward commercial fleets. The company said Tucker successfully navigated Zubie through industry headwinds that took place as a result of COVID-19.
Caswell is a 20-plus-year SaaS technology and product veteran who was previously vice president of technology for Insite Software. Insite is a B2B commerce application by Forrester Research and Gartner.
Before that, Caswell was a founder at FeePay, an education payment software platform that supported 2.5 million global users, native mobile, web back office and native mobile retail.
“Having served as Zubie’s CTO for the past four years, I’m excited about leading Zubie in our mission to deliver simple-to-use telematics software for rental operators, fleet managers, and dealers,” Caswell said in a news release. “I look forward to placing an increased focus on growing Zubie’s technology and software capabilities and continuing to lead our growth in the rental and fleet markets.”
“After four years of leading the Zubie team, I’m proud to transition a healthy business with full-service stable of products and a growing customer base to Chad’s more-than-capable leadership,” Tucker said. “Chad was my first hire as CEO. He’s well-positioned to lead Zubie into a successful future.”
“The board would like to thank Gary for his creative and effective leadership in establishing a sound foundation for Zubie’s future success,” said Zubie board chairman Ron LeMay.
LeMay also said, “We are fortunate to have a talented executive in Chad to succeed Gary. Chad’s knowledge of the company will permit him to capitalize on the existing foundation and seize the momentum associated with the company’s improving performance and the post COVID-19 tailwinds.”
Zubie’s Rental Connect is a fleet management service dedicated to serving the rental car industry. It includes features such as real-time fuel and odometer readings and Zubie Location Link, which assists vehicle recovery efforts.
The company most recently launched additional features such as Smart Maintenance, which helps fleet managers track, schedule and pay for service online. The company’s Zubie Dashcam delivers forward-facing and in-cabin video data through Zubie’s one-stop-shop software platform. The new in-cabin video product sits alongside Zubie’s Fleet Connect product and the recently launched Asset Trak equipment tracking product.
Digital marketing technology company Orbee has appointed co-founder Atul Patel as its new chief executive officer.
Patel, who recently served as the company’s chief operating officer, replaces Daniel Kim, who was the CEO since he co-founded the company with Patel.
The company said Patel and Kim have worked together for the past five years to build Orbee into an automotive industry marketing services provider.
Kim will continue as a member of the company’s board of directors.
Patel’s 20 years of marketing and advertising technology experience includes building businesses in lead management and scoring, advertising across display, video, and social channels, and behavioral data and intelligence.
Late last year, Verisk acquired Jornaya, a data company Patel co-founded. Patel co-invented the company’s core intellectual property. Verisk acquired the company to add to its set of marketing services for the insurance and financial services markets.
“Patel is passionate about the same digital transformation in the automotive industry and is driven to bring the most cutting-edge marketing capabilities to the ecosystem,” Orbee wrote in a news release.
Orbee last September announced the appointment of Peter Fong as chief revenue officer, and the company said Patel and Fong have worked closely over the past six months to introduce Orbee’s offerings to the broader automotive ecosystem, including large dealership groups, media agencies, and strategic integration partners.
“Atul has proven to be a digital marketing thought-leader in the automotive industry that I have called home for over 26 years,” Fong said. “He is able to decode complex scenarios in our ever-changing digital landscape while working closely with our entire team to execute for the success of our customers and partners.”
“I am thrilled to be leading the amazing Orbee team in the nascent automotive industry where the tiered structure and disparate integrations provide significant opportunity for digital marketing innovation,” Patel said.
Patel also said, “This is a critical time for improving consumer experience because of the fundamental changes underway in automotive such as with digital retailing, dealers having to compete with direct-to-consumer services, and manufacturers launching improved new car buying tools for consumers, and beyond automotive with new privacy-first business models with Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FloC) and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT).”
Orbee said its aggressive product roadmap includes its Tier X service for large dealership groups and its capabilities for large and niche agencies using its platform APIs and SDKs to better serve their customers.
Orbee sourced eMarketer as reporting in January that automotive companies will recover to nearly $13.29 billion in advertising spending. Orbee said it is well-positioned to help the industry balance the investment with intelligent marketing capabilities.
Patel and the Orbee team have already completed a significant amount of the transition. As of April 2021, the predecessor California corporation, Sparki Labs Inc. D/B/A Orbee Auto, has merged with the surviving Delaware corporation, Orbee, Inc.
Also, complemented by its new logo, the company has been rebranded from Orbee Auto to Orbee. The company said that signifies how its automotive products and services are relevant to the broader digital marketing landscape.
