Along with adding two more veterans to its roster of compliance experts, Ignite Consulting Partners plans to offer what the firm believes is the first free training offering of its kind.
Ignite is going to host a free webinar about completing the financing and delivery of vehicles to Hispanic customers by conducting the entire education event in Spanish.
The webinar will be led by one of Ignite’s newest consultants, Jessica Cumbee, who was formerly general counsel with Tricolor Auto, a leading provider of financing to Hispanic customers.
The session is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET on Feb. 11. Dealers and managers can register for the free event here.
“We feel this webinar is an important step to make compliance attainable for what has been an under-served market,” Cumbee said in a news release. “Many car dealership and finance company personnel speak Spanish as their native language, and I believe that explaining compliance concepts to them in the language with which they are most comfortable will help their understanding and retention.
In my experience, the compliance message doesn’t easily spread throughout a company, so providing this alternative is a way to increase awareness and protect the business,” she continued.
This free webinar is part of Ignite’s monthly series dedicated to important compliance concepts. Sales personnel, collections staff, administrative employees and those having customer interaction are all encouraged to attend.
“My plan is to cover the crucial compliance concepts in a way that is both entertaining and informative and encourages questions,” Cumbee added.
As mentioned, Cumbee is one of the newest additions at Ignite. Along with her time with Tricolor Auto, Cumbee has previously been general counsel with Spartan Financial.
The other expert who recently joined Ignite is a family name to readers of SubPrime Auto Finance News.
Randy Henrick joined the firm as the leader of Ignite’s new franchised dealer group. Previously with Dealertrack, Henrick’s background includes auto finance, privacy, data security and consumer credit. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and regular contributor to SubPrime Auto Finance News.
“Randy is a thought leader on dealer training and education, which philosophically aligns with Ignite’s vision. Plus, he brings a wealth of expertise that will be a benefit our clients, both franchise and independent dealers,” Ignite chief legal and compliance officer Steve Levine said.
Tricolor tapped a new leader to oversee the insurance offering the company announced last month.
Tricolor, one of the nation’s largest used-vehicle retailers focusing on the sale and financing of vehicles to Hispanic consumers, on Monday named Archie Gall as chief executive officer of its affiliate company, Tricolor Insurance. The provider of affordable insurance for subprime vehicle owners will begin rolling out its new insurance offering throughout all of its markets in Texas and California.
“I am thrilled to welcome Archie to the Tricolor team,” Tricolor chief executive officer Daniel Chu said in a news release. “He shares our vision to make car buying and ownership a trusted and affordable experience for everyone.
“His experience creating and expanding insurance solutions for consumers will be vital to our commitment to transform the nonstandard auto insurance industry on behalf of underserved customers,” Chu continued.
With 30 years of experience in the insurance industry, the company highlighted Gall brings an impressive track record of launching, growing and operating successful insurance agencies in Texas. Between 2005 and 2014, Gall grew his Austin-based operation to more than 20 locations before it was acquired by Confie Seguros, a national non-standard auto insurance company operating more than 800 locations in 22 states serving the Hispanic market.
“I’m eager to become the best value provider in the market, providing transparency and eliminating unnecessary fees for deserving car owners,” Gall said. “We can build on Tricolor’s impressive brand and reputation, leveraging their innovative lead generation strategies, technology stack, and back-office capacity to quickly scale this initiative and create a meaningful component for the company’s broader financial services platform.”
Tricolo estimated the nonstandard auto insurance industry comprises approximately 30% of the $140 billion personal auto insurance market. Agencies serving this customer segment often offset perceived cancellation risk by charging high origination fees.
Tricolor said it can eliminate agency fees — including point of sale, endorsement and cancellation fees — by using risk insights gained from its data-driven underwriting models.
Tricolor Insurance Agency, an affiliate of Tricolor Auto Group, currently serves as an agent for 10 nonstandard carriers and markets its services throughout Tricolor’s 28 dealerships and through its eight Ganas dealerships in southern California.
Currently available only to Tricolor auto purchase customers, the company plans to extend its insurance offering to all vehicle owners later next year.
On a combined basis, Tricolor and Ganas have served nearly 50,000 customers and originated nearly $1 billion in contracts by using its proprietary model to segment risk.
For more information about Tricolor and Ganas, visit Tricolor.com and Ganas.com.
This week, AGORA Data added two new executives to its leadership team as the company positions itself to release a tool aimed at connecting dealers and the capital markets.
The Texas-based provider of technology and financial solutions for the automotive industry announced that Chad Stilwell and Cade Cunningham have joined the company’s senior management team. Stilwell will lead the data analytics department as the senior vice president of data science. Cunningham will be appointed senior vice president of capital solutions.
The company said in a news release that Stilwell and Cunningham will be instrumental to the success of the rapidly expanding company as well as the release of its new platform.
AGORA also welcomed Lou Kailer and Justin Stokes as associate vice presidents of capital solutions.
Stilwell joined AGORA from Alcon Vision located in Fort Worth, Texas. Stilwell provided Alcon with innovative analytical solutions and invaluable commercial business insights for 11 years. With expertise in data science, analytics, commercial operations, and information technology, Stilwell will work with a team of developers to bring personalized business intelligence and expert analytics to AGORA users.
Cunningham is a seasoned capital analyst and portfolio manager. Over the years, Cunningham has controlled multi-million dollar portfolios, used derivatives to hedge and built long-standing portfolio strategies. Cunningham will be leading non-strategic investment, relationship management, and sales for hedge funds, family offices, and high net worth clients.
“With Stilwell and Cunningham at the wheel, AGORA will soon be releasing a new and exclusive product line for its users, AgoraTrade — a platform designed to bring capital market solutions to car dealers,” AGORA Data chief executive officer Steve Burke said.
“Through our platform, dealers will be given access to the same high-level analytics and business intelligence that is used on Wall Street,” Burke continued.
“With Stilwell heading up our machine learning and AI initiatives, we are going to give dealers access to the same powerful connections and investors that billion-dollar corporations have,” Burke went on to say. “This will change the industry for every BHPH dealer.”
AGORA plans to release the new product line by the end of 2019 and has started reserving spaces for interested accounts. The availability for the initial release is limited, and Burke plans to have every space filled by October.
“Our growth over the past year has been exceptional, and we are thrilled to have Cade, Chad, Lou and Justin as contributors to take AGORA to even higher levels of success and innovation,” Burke said. “As part of our management team, their experience aids us in our development and release of our most market-disruptive products to date, AgoraTrade and AgoraCapital.”
For more information, contact AGORA Data at (877) 592-4672 or email contactus@agoradata.com.
Tricolor is looking to a high-level Equifax executive to provide guidance and leadership.
The used-vehicle retailer focusing on the integrated sale and financing of vehicles to Hispanic consumers on Tuesday announced the addition of veteran Equifax and financial services executive Dann Adams to its board of directors. Adams will help guide Tricolor’s growth as it explores new models and applications for its underwriting platform.
“I am thrilled to welcome Dann to the team,” Tricolor chief executive officer Daniel Chu said. “He has a proven track record of creating new data assets; helping industries identify greater risk transparency; and developing insights that help consumers gain greater access to credit.
“We believe his in-depth understanding of the unbanked consumer will help us expand our application of alternative data and artificial intelligence,” Chu added.
A 20-year veteran of Equifax, Adams currently serves as president of the company’s global consumer solutions business unit, and is a previous president of the company’s workforce solutions and former consumer information solutions business units. In addition, Adams has been instrumental in developing Equifax industry data exchanges focused on small businesses, telecommunications and utilities, as well as income and employment verification services.
Prior to joining Equifax in 1999, Adams held various leadership positions in sales, sales management and product marketing at Dun & Bradstreet Information Services.
“Through its use of data and novel technologies, Tricolor has enabled a vastly underserved market to access affordable credit,” Adams said. “I am excited to combine what I’ve learned about the unique needs of the unbanked consumer and the hourly worker with the risk assessment model of the Tricolor platform.
“In addition, I’m inspired by the opportunity to help others gain access to affordable credit and create enormous value,” he went on to say.
Tricolor’s proprietary credit decisioning engine serves as the foundation for a new direct lending model for subprime Hispanic customers. Its segmentation model can assess unique, non-traditional attributes for no credit and low-income consumers in order to assess intent and ability to repay.
Tricolor has recently begun to build upon its model for underwriting thin and no file customers. The company has also partnered with an artificial intelligence provider, Phenx Machine Learning Technologies, to advance its underwriting capabilities.
AGORA bolstered its executive team this week with a pair of new additions.
The Texas-based provider of technology solutions for the financial services industry announced Jim Bass has joined the management team as the senior vice president of finance and Zach Maynard as the senior vice president of marketing.
AGORA founder and chief executive officer Steve Burke highlighted both executives’ experience in finance will enhance the growth of its platform and AGORA’s ever-expanding scope of services and solutions it offers to auto finance companies and dealers nationwide.
“Jim is an experienced automotive finance leader with over 30 years of success building great organizations. His senior executive leadership roles with Auto One Acceptance, Autoeloan.com, Driversselect, First Investors Financial Services and Center Street Finance position Jim well to help lead the growth and success of the AGORA community,” Burke said.
“Zach started his career building a successful wealth management practice; his true passion has always been technology and its disruptive power in industries across the globe. Zach’s dedication to market disruptive technologies has us excited to have Zach on our management team,” Burke continued.
“Our growth over the past year has been exceptional, and we are thrilled to have Jim and Zach as contributors to take AGORA to even higher levels of success and innovation,” Burke went on to say. “As part of our senior management team, their experience aids us in our development and a fourth-quarter release of our most market-disruptive products to date.”
Bass also is a founder of the National Automotive Finance Association, has served in several capacities including president, chairman, and is currently an executive committee and board of directors member.
“The tremendous power and value of AGORA’s platform and groundbreaking technology is the reason I joined this market disruptive company,” Bass said. “I am thrilled to be part of this amazing team, helping drive AGORA’s integrated resources across the consumer finance sector with this revolutionary platform.”
