On Monday, ADESA announced changes to its auction management teams at ADESA Orlando, ADESA Sarasota and ADESA Tampa, effective immediately.
The business unit of KAR Auction Services said Jeff York, previously general manager of ADESA Sarasota, will lead ADESA Orlando as general manager.
The company indicated Curt Farris, previously general manager at ADESA Tampa, will serve as general manager at ADESA Sarasota.
ADESA added that Lisa O’Neil, previously assistant general manager at ADESA Atlanta, has been named general manager at ADESA Tampa.
“Jeff, Curt and Lisa are veteran industry professionals with proven auction expertise and are key examples of the strong bench strength throughout our organization,” ADESA chief operating officer Paul Lips said.
“They bring a breadth of knowledge and experience to their new roles and will excel at serving customers and employees alike in the Florida market,” Lips continued.
ADESA highlighted York has more than 40 years of experience in the automotive industry, including 30 years in remarketing. He had been general manager at ADESA Sarasota since 2007. Under his leadership, ADESA Sarasota won the company’s 2011 Auction of the Year award. ADESA Sarasota was recently named one of the Best Auto Auctions to Work For as highlighted in Auto Remarketing.
Before joining ADESA, York had held executive management roles at various auto auction companies over two decades.
ADESA recapped that Farris started his career at Hertz. He joined ADESA Sarasota as fleet lease manager in 2007. In 2012 he was promoted to general manager of ADESA Tampa. During his tenure at ADESA Tampa, Farris led the auction to win the company’s internal 2014 and 2015 (Medium) Auction of the Year awards and the 2015 National Auction of the Year award from the National Independent Auto Dealers Association. He was named 2014 Auction Person of the Year by the Florida Independent Auto Dealers Association.
The company noted O’Neil joined ADESA in 2003 in dealer sales for ADESA Atlanta and was later promoted to commercial accounts manager at that location. In 2009 she served as ADESA regional sales manager for the West region, national sales manager, and then as director of inside sales and dealer relations for the East region. She was named assistant general manager for ADESA Atlanta in 2015.
KAR Auction Services announced a vice president of KAR IT Shared Services on Thursday, promoting Gary Fields to the position.
Fields has been with the company since 2003, when he joined the IT department of subsidiary Automotive Finance Corp.
His most recent post was as director of KAR IT Shared Services.
“Throughout Gary’s career at KAR, he has demonstrated a meaningful understanding of technology’s impact on the automotive remarketing industry. He has significantly contributed to our continued evolution,” Gary Watkins, KAR chief information officer of IT Shared Services, said in a news release.
Fields’ responsibilities include leading enterprise-wide tech solution implementations for ITSS and identifying and researching relevant emerging technologies. Additionally, he will be integral in setting the ITSS tech vision. He will report to Watkins.
JMN Logistics and Transportation has named David Burke as executive sales manager for Detroit.
In his new role, Burke will provide leadership to the sales, marketing and customer service departments while maintaining focus on JMN Transportation’s strategic goals.
Burke brings nearly 20 years of experience in the transportation industry. Prior to joining JMN, he was vice president of sales at Orion Transportation and general manager for East Coast Truck and Trailer.
“I am pleased to announce David Burke as our new executive sales manager at JMN,” said chief operating officer Cindy Darnell. “David comes to us with an exceptional variety of experience. We keep aggressive goals to always continue growth of JMN, David will play a vital role in that development.”
JMN Logistics and Transportation, a family owned and operated business headquartered in Maryland Heights, Mo., provides transportation services for dealers, auto auctions, private individuals, manufacturers and rental agencies throughout the United States.
Double-digit growth during the last year prompted CU Recovery and The Loan Service Center to add an additional layer of executive management.
As a result, the operation gave the newly created chief operating officer position to Chris Becker, who will help to ensure the companies continue on a path of healthy growth while maintaining their role as a resource for credit union collection departments.
Co-founder Kelly Becker made the personnel move.
In his new role, Chris Becker will direct the organization in meeting growth, financial and operational goals. He will work with the leadership team to develop operational strategy and policies to ensure the expectations of clients are met while keeping service as the No. 1 priority.
Kelly Becker highlighted that Chris Becker understands the credit union not-for-profit model and adds a depth of understanding with a background in third-party risk management, compliance and credit analysis.
“Chris knows credit unions and believes in the not-for-profit model as well as the need to be responsive to client requirements at all times,” Kelly Becker said. “Chris is passionate about service delivery excellence and building solid relationships with clients and staff.”
Chris Becker added that his personal goal is to “help CU Recovery and The Loan Service Center develop and deliver products that exceed the expectations of the marketplace.”
Along with soft launching a new way for consumers to sell their vehicles so that the units might end up in the auction lanes, online vehicle marketplace operator Beepi hired David Faugno as its chief financial officer on Tuesday.
While the company has been in operations for just over two years, Faugno is its first CFO.
“Beepi’s organic growth and diversification in services has ushered in the need for expanding our leadership team,” said Ale Resnik, chief executive officer and co-founder of Beepi.
“With his track record of success in guiding financial strategy and operations in both the public and private markets, David is well-positioned to lead Beepi through the next chapter as the automotive industry evolves and Beepi continues its exceptional growth,” Resnik continued.
Another path Beepi hopes to develop is through what it’s calling Beepi Blue.
Launched earlier this month, the company explained Beepi Blue is a new service aimed at making it easier to sell a used vehicle online or via mobile phone. With Beepi Blue, Beepi will make an offer on all vehicles, even ones that don't meet Beepi's stringent requirements or don't pass the 240-point inspection, and sell them at a wholesale auction.
The launch of Beepi Blue comes a couple of months after the company expanded its delivery service nationwide in July. Beepi highlighted that it saw strong website traffic and inquiries from consumers located in non-Beepi markets. Now, people can buy a used vehicle from anywhere in the continental U.S. except North Dakota and Montana and get it delivered right to their driveway with a 10-day money-back guarantee.
And brought on board to enhance those developments is Faugno. He joins Beepi from Barracuda Networks, where he led as CFO for a decade.
Barracuda scaled immensely under his leadership; Faugno joined when it employed fewer than 100 people and grew to more than 1,500 during his tenure. He led the acquisitions of more than a dozen companies, took the company public in 2013 and led the finance organization for the public company for more than two years.
Faugno was recognized as Silicon Valley Business Journal CFO of the Year in 2013.
On Monday, ADESA promoted Trent Strauss to be director of dealer relations, effective immediately. He will report to Steve Dudash, the company’s vice president of dealer services.
In his new role within the business unit of KAR Auction Services, Strauss will lead the local auction dealer relations teams throughout the United States and oversee deployment of the national sales and dealer relations strategy.
“Trent’s career focus on customer service excellence and sales team coaching will be invaluable to our dealer sales professionals, who are dedicated to serving dealers’ wholesale auction needs,” Dudash said.
“His expertise in communication strategies and creating solutions for business projects will enable us to zero in on delivering a premium customer experience,” Dudash added.
Strauss has more than 15 years of inbound and retail sales experience. Since joining ADESA in 2010, he has served as district inside sales manager in Colorado Springs, where he was responsible for telesales staff at up to 13 locations.
Prior to joining ADESA, Strauss established a new customer contact center for Knowledge Learning Corp. as customer relationship supervisor.
Previously, he had held positions of increasing responsibility in inbound sales at Deluxe Corp., including sales support team leader for key national accounts and sales coach leader.
Along with appointing a new chief executive officer, ACV Auctions this week announced that it has raised $5 million in venture funding, led by Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from SoftBank Capital NY, Armory Square Ventures and Rand Capital.
In addition, the company appointed Synacor founder George Chamoun as CEO. In conjunction with the financing, Brian Hirsch from Tribeca Venture Partners and Jordan Levy from SBNY have joined the company’s board of directors.
ACV Auctions is a mobile platform that can enable dealers to view, bid and purchase inventory via online auctions. These live auctions are conducted from franchised dealer lots and last just 20 minutes.
Overseeing this operation now is Chamoun, who replaces ACV Auctions co-founder Joe Neiman, who will focus on market development.
Chamoun brings with him a record of accomplishment as an entrepreneur and senior executive. He co-founded Synacor right out of college in 1998, and spent the next two decades building it into a trusted technology and revenue partner for some of the largest video and communication providers in the world. Chamoun also serves as chairman of Launch NY, a non-for-profit organization supporting the startup ecosystem for Upstate New York.
As an early angel investor in ACV, Chamoun was drawn by the company’s long-term potential. Since then, he says ACV’s performance — and the overwhelmingly positive response of customers — has further affirmed his confidence in the company.
“In just one year, more than 800 dealerships registered for our mobile service, proving the value of our highly innovative service. These are the same reasons we also attracted top venture capital firms to fuel our growth,” Chamoun said.
“We are proving the case that dealers prefer to purchase wholesale inventory on ACV, because we enable transparency, trust and faster access to fresh trades,” he continued.
“ACV Auctions is to car auctions what broadband was to dialup: a superior experience by every measure,” Chamoun went on to say. “Our team is proud to partner with franchise and independent dealers throughout the country by offering a proven service that adds tremendous value to their businesses, and to the dealer industry overall.”
Hirsch elaborated about why Tribeca Venture Partners decided to send resources to ACV Auctions.
“Tribeca invests in world class entrepreneurs and radical innovation — not incremental improvement,” Hirsch said. “ACV already proved in its first year that it can transform the wholesale automotive sector and has a proven team of entrepreneurs that understand how to build a high-growth business.”
Meanwhile, Neiman insisted he will continue focusing on customers.
“Having owned a used car business myself and spending years buying cars in physical auctions, I understand the many challenges that dealers face,” he said. “With ACV, we have created a service that significantly reduces risk for used car dealerships.”
ACV was the $1 million winner of last year’s 43North startup competition, which each year draws startup applicants globally.
“43North is excited to see ACV Auctions receive $5 million in venture funding, and we welcome George Chamoun as their CEO,” 43North executive director John Gavigan said. “We look forward to seeing ACV Auctions continue to grow and revolutionize the wholesale auto auction process.”
National independent third-party inspection company Alliance Inspection Management (AiM) has hired Mike Francis as the national sales director of used cars and rental cars.
The company highlighted on Monday that Francis will lead and oversee AiM’s sales growth and retention in its major used and rental car vehicle inspection markets, focusing on developing and fostering relationships with current and potential clients to maintain and grow revenue in their respective sales channel. Francis will report to Eric Widmer, AiM senior vice president of sales and marketing.
“Mike Francis’ extensive auto remarketing experience will make AiM’s sales team even stronger. Mike brings a unique point of view in regards to digital remarketing and online sales,” Widmer said.
“As a national sales director, he will help AiM customers wholesale cars faster and work with rental companies to increase the speed at which they can complete their remarketing processes,” Widmer continued.
Francis has more than 20 years of automotive industry experience, working for brands including Volkswagen of America and, most recently, Ally Financial, where he served as director of national accounts at SmartAuction. There, he was responsible for directing strategic initiatives with OEMs and captives, rental companies, banks, as well as strategic buyers and sellers to diversify and grow the SmartAuction platform.
For more information on AiM, visit homepage.aiminspections.com.
DealerPeople, a free web-based and mobile platform dedicated to providing solutions for recruiting, training and retaining the most qualified dealership employees, named its chief executive officer this week.
Coming aboard as CEO is Jay Mortensen in a move the company called the next step for the platform started up earlier this year with a mission to help raise the bar for employee and management standards in dealerships across the U.S.
“I could not be more excited to have Jay full time on the executive team,” DealerPeople president Scott de Ruyter said. “There is no doubt that his years of sales, management and training experience will lead to the further success of our platform and solid results for our participating dealerships.”
Founded in 2015 by industry insiders committed to reducing industry turnover and streamlining the hiring and training processes, DealerPeople is a free platform that allows dealers to post job listings while enabling job seekers to seamlessly search for dealerships, find career opportunities in practically every region of the U.S., and submit traditional print and video resumes.
Available through Android, desktops and iOS, the DealerPeople application also offers real-time access to industry insights and best practices, a video library of “road-tested” solutions, leadership and sales training resources, and coursework to assist employees in achieving new performance goals, which ultimately can provide a competitive advantage and contribute to individual and organizational success.
With industry experience dating back to 1989, Mortensen has held nearly every position in the sales department and has worked with nearly every make of vehicle. He believes that he understands the challenges of the industry and deeply respects its salespeople and dealership personnel.
“I am very eager to help dealers increase their success, by providing the right training, at the right time, to the right people, in an organized fashion,” Mortensen said. “With a traditional revolving door of employees in the dealership business, it is time to help create a structure that promotes long-term relationships, loyalty and satisfaction in the workplace — all of which can lead to more profit.”
For more information, visit www.dealerpeople.com.
Edie Hirtenstein has been named director of business development for instaVIN, a business unit of KAR Auction Services.
She will report to instaVIN chief executive officer and president Jim Irish.
Hirtenstein will be responsible for managing customer relationships and identifying and implementing innovative products and services.
Her key areas of focus will be to develop partnerships with major automotive service providers and to identify integration opportunities for the company, particularly in the areas of remarketing, vehicle data and collision information.
“Edie brings a rich knowledge of auto dealerships, auto finance companies, auto insurance and consumer use of car facts and report information,” said Irish. “Her extensive experience with vehicle history report data and online VIN check processes will help us enhance our agility and proficiency as we continue to expand the capabilities and alliances of instaVIN.com.”
Hirtenstein held various executive positions in product management during her eight years at Experian Automotive, including AutoCheck history reports, and four years at Equifax. She is skilled in the areas of salvage, rebuilt and junk brand data, and also is familiar with instaVIN, having previously spent two years as director of data services.
Hirtenstein received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
