To achieve the flexibility required for what the F&I provider described as its next level of expansion, RoadVantage announced leadership restructuring on Friday with two executives moves.
The first move made by RoadVantage was adding industry veteran Bob Corbin as its new president of sales. Then, RoadVantage said its previous president of sales, Randy Ross, will be promoted to be president of the company.
According to a news release, RoadVantage explained these changes will help the company drive sales to even higher levels after setting records last year. The company indicated its dual goals will be to help agent partners expand their businesses while seeking fresh, new growth opportunities.
“I’m honored to join the RoadVantage team as the company continues to post repeated record sales,” Corbin said in the news release about the post he took over on Friday. “I appreciate the trust placed in me by CEO Garret Lacour, and I’m excited to help this company grow even faster than ever before.”
Lacour offered this perspective about Corbin joining RoadVantage.
“Bob Corbin is the next logical addition to our efforts,” Lacour said. “Bob will be an outstanding leader for our sales team. He has done this repeatedly with incredible success, and we are very excited about what he can do for our company.
“Our 4.8 rating with over 240 Google Reviews and top honors for four years running with Diamond wins in the Dealers' Choice Awards are proof positive that we are the best, and Bob will help us deliver even more value,” Lacour continued. “We will continue to prove our value as a premier provider to our agents, dealers, and customers.”
Meanwhile, in the sales department, RoadVantage noted that Steve Chandler and Michael Picolo will continue to create sales growth with leadership roles guiding the sales team’s RVPs and ADMs.
The company went on to say Ross has done an “outstanding job” for the company as president of sales considering the terrific success RoadVantage has enjoyed during the last couple of years.
Ross described his view as RoadVantage’s president among the moves the company has made.
“We appreciate the daily efforts of everyone on our team to be the best in the business. We are impressed with our entire staff's professionalism and proud of the company we've built,” he said. “I’m energized by the changes we’re making, and I look forward to my new role as president. Our company will be able to offer even greater service to our agent partners.”
For more information, visit www.roadvantage.com.
Soon after he was named the incoming chief executive officer of APCO Holdings, Scot Eisenfelder joined the Auto Remarketing Podcast to share how his previous professional stops at places such as AutoNation and Reynolds and Reynolds prepared him for the position, a role he will assume on May 1.
Eisenfelder also discussed pandemic impacts on F&I and how APCO Holdings is responding via its EasyCare, GWC Warranty and MemberCare brands.
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With an eye toward mergers and acquisitions, StoneEagle F&I hired a new industry professional to lead the company’s business development enterprises, including sales, marketing and affiliate partnerships.
On Wednesday, the provider of F&I technology solutions welcomed Joe St. John as senior vice president of business development, bringing more than 20 years of experience across dealership development, management and operations, sales force development and digital transformation.
According to a news release, St. John will report directly to StoneEagle chief executive officer Cindy Allen.
“Joe brings an incredibly valuable and unique set of skills and experience to our StoneEagle team,” Allen said in the news release. “Joe’s singular blend of talents from a career that spans automotive retail to F&I administration to Silicon Valley startup will help fuel the acceleration of our growth and be an invaluable add to our executive team as we shift into strategic M&A activities.”
St. John was most recently head of digital retail at AutoFi, a financial technology company and leader in digital transformation within retail automotive.
StoneEagle highlighted that he was a key part of AutoFi's growth during the past five years and will remain closely connected to the company as a digital retail advisor and investor.
“StoneEagle’s customer-centric leadership, entrepreneurial vision, and deep understanding of data has revolutionized the F&I industry,” St. John said. “As a former customer and user of StoneEagle’s products, it’s exhilarating to join their seasoned and innovative team at this pivotal moment in the industry and to help lead the next era of delivering enhanced value to our trusted partners.”
Eight months after joining APCO Holdings, Scot Eisenfelder is poised to become its chief executive officer.
The provider and administrator of automotive F&I products and home to the EasyCare, GWC Warranty and MemberCare brands announced on Monday that Eisenfelder has been named CEO of APCO Holdings via a move that’s effective May 1.
Eisenfelder joined APCO in August as senior vice president, strategy and planning.
According to a news release, APCO Holdings’ current chairman and CEO Finbarr O’Neill will assume the position of executive chairman.
“I look forward to continuing the strategic direction that Fin has set here in the last two years,” Eisenfelder said in the news release.
“We have several exciting new initiatives planned, including the expansion of core offerings that will help our customers thrive in a digital retail world,” he continued. “We will also continue to expand our offerings in the credit union, recreational vehicle and direct to consumer channels.”
The company said O’Neill will relinquish his role as CEO upon completion of a two-year commitment. As executive chairman, O’Neill will oversee the strategic direction and senior management development.
“When we recruited Scot to join the board in 2019, we knew he would be an excellent fit at APCO, due to his deep automotive industry experience and keen understanding of the critical role of automotive dealers in the industry,” O’Neill said.
“Over the last year he has taken on increasing levels of responsibility, demonstrating at each step he is more than capable of leading APCO to new levels of growth,” O’Neill added.
In his two years as chairman and CEO of APCO Holdings, the company highlighted O’Neill has helped drive a number of changes including bringing more focus on the core business, shedding extraneous initiatives, upgrading systems, improving processes and preparing for the impact of digital retail on the automotive industry.
Prior to joining APCO Holdings, Eisenfelder was executive chairman and CEO of Affinitiv, a leading provider of data-driven marketing and retention solutions.
And as senior vice president of strategy at AutoNation, Eisenfelder led significant initiatives to drive retail innovation.
Earlier in his career, Eisenfelder also led JM Family’s dealer software business and was senior vice president of product management, strategy and marketing at Reynolds and Reynolds, delivering profitable growth for both companies.
Primeritus Financial Services handed remarketing responsibilities this week to an executive with more than 20 years of industry experience, most of it with a large commercial bank.
The forwarding company that provides recovery management, skip-tracing and remarketing services to the auto finance and insurance industries announced that Jason Herman is senior vice president of remarketing for Primeritus, effective immediately.
In this role, Herman will lead the company’s remarketing and ancillary service operations and will report to Primeritus chief revenue officer Joe Mappes, joining its senior leadership team.
“Jason is a tenured operations executive with a proven track record in managing all aspects of the asset management lifecycle,” Mappes said in a news release. “He brings a substantial amount of expertise on a national level, manages remarketing teams and builds out customized solutions for auto finance institutions.
“Furthermore, Jason’s deep knowledge and expertise in the financial services industry will be an asset to our company, partners and customers,” Mappes added.
Herman comes to Primeritus with more than two decades of asset remarketing experience from his years with U.S. Bank, where he began in 1999, and advanced to become senior vice president and director of asset remarketing before leaving the bank for Mike Albert Leasing in 2019.
At Mike Albert Leasing, Herman led the remarketing, residual risk management and manufacturer partnership teams.
“Herman has a track record of driving continuous improvement through process management while generating strong financial results in both bear and bullish used car markets by utilizing technology and a multiple sales channel approach,” Mappes said. “He understands first-hand the serious impact and importance of maximizing a company’s back-end results. These attributes and Herman’s expertise will well serve our current remarketing partners’ best interests and allow us to continue to provide strong results, mitigating potential losses and maximizing any gains, especially for our continued growth trajectory.
“Moreover, Jason is a seasoned leader with an abundance of industry accolades. He is well-known and highly respected in our industry, and we are proud to welcome him to the Primeritus family,” Mappes went on to say.
Herman offered his perspective about joining that family that also includes Roquemore, Find Track Locate, Repo Remarketing, Consolidated Asset Recovery Systems and Global Investigative Services.
“I am excited to join the Primeritus family. As both a previous customer and fellow consignor in the remarketing industry, I have always admired the innovation and expertise that Primeritus provides,” Herman said.
“I look forward to sharing my experiences in the banking, fleet, and financial services industries with the team. By utilizing the ideal remarketing channels to net the best returns for our clients, we can deliver every possible dollar, on every asset, every time,” Herman added.
Former defi SOLUTIONS chief executive and award-winning entrepreneur Stephanie Alsbrooks Hanson is embarking on her next foray within auto financing.
On Wednesday, Tricolor — a tech-enabled Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and one of the nation’s largest used-vehicle retailers that caters to Hispanic consumers — named Hanson as president of newly formed Tricolor Financial.
As part of its mission to transform consumer credit for underserved Hispanic consumers, Tricolor explained this new venture will extend the company’s proprietary technology powered by artificial intelligence through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 26 million people in the United States are “credit invisible,” and an additional 19 million are “unscoreable,” corresponding to a total of 45 million people in the United States whose lack of a credit score sometimes translates into limited options in terms of accessing financing for a major purchase such as a vehicle.
Tricolor said its pioneering application of AI and other advanced technologies are all part of its integrated used-vehicle sales and financing platform that has helped to deliver high-quality vehicles at affordable rates for low-income, credit invisible Hispanics within this market.
So far, the company has booked more than $1 billion of paper as Tricolor and its affiliate Ganas Auto Group operate more than 40 retail dealerships across 14 markets in Texas, California, Arizona and Nevada.
And now the company has Tricolor Financial in its technology portfolio.
“This is an exciting day for Tricolor as we significantly grow our capacity to fulfill our core mission by launching a new initiative to leverage our capability to ‘score the unscoreable,’” Tricolor founder and chief executive officer Daniel Chu said in a news release.
“I am thrilled to welcome Stephanie to the team as she helps scale this endeavor nationally,” Chu continued. Her experience as a technologist and innovator in consumer lending is unrivaled, making her the perfect person to lead this next phase of mission-driven growth.”
While founding and leading defi SOLUTIONS, Hanson successfully raised funding from Bain Capital Ventures and drew more than 100 finance companies to its mission and platform before merging the business with Sagent Lending Technologies in 2019.
Hanson was recognized as E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner for the Southwest Region in 2017 and was named a 40 Under 40 honoree by Dallas Business Journal in 2014 as well as being one of the top industry CEOs highlighted by SubPrime Auto Finance News in 2016.
“I enthusiastically embrace Tricolor’s mission to drive inclusion, and am excited to be a part of Tricolor’s vision to expand its impact serving the financially underserved,” Hanson said.
“Understanding the challenges of launching and growing a business, I look forward to catalyzing new strategic relationships and opportunities to pursue this next important phase of Tricolor’s growth,” she went on to say.
An executive who spent nearly 20 years with a luxury OEM’s captive finance company now is part of the leadership team at Prestige Financial Services.
On Friday, the affiliate of The Larry H. Miller Group of Companies named Bradley Bitner as director of finance to manage the company's financial analysis and reporting, support key initiatives and advise on strategy implementation.
Bitner joins Prestige after 18 years at Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, where he held increasing levels of responsibility in corporate strategy, risk management, finance and controlling, global risk audit and operations.
Prestige highlighted that Bitner’s most recent responsibilities with the captive included oversight of a $146 billion project budget, business continuity, vendor management and the company’s online properties.
“Brad joins us with extensive experience in various aspects of auto finance,” Prestige president Rich Hyde said in a news release. “His high level of expertise will help us not only to grow, but to grow the right way. We’re very pleased to have him on board.”
Now in its 27th year of operations, Prestige Financial Services provides consumer financing solutions for franchised dealerships in 42 states. As of the time of its latest news release, the company had a $950 million portfolio and employed more than 500 credit professionals and support staff to service a wide range of borrower types.
SAFCO added an executive whose experience includes time with one of the subprime auto finance company’s competitors as well as posts with a large bank and an automaker's captive.
Entrepreneur and fintech veteran Kenneth Gang recently joined SAFCO as its new senior risk officer.
“Having worked for the likes of Wells Fargo, Hyundai, GLS, and other prominent financial institutions, Ken brings many years of experience and success as a risk officer to our company,” SAFCO founder and chief executive officer George Fussell said in a news release.
“His arrival represents the beginning of a bold new era for us. We couldn’t be more optimistic about the future,” Fussell continued.
With the addition of Gang, SAFCO highlighted that it gains exceptional portfolio management and analytic expertise that will enable the company to strategically grow its finance products and competitive position to a “whole new performance level.”
Gang joins SAFCO from Bambu Finance where he was interim CEO/CRO since 2017. Prior to Bambu, he held chief risk officer positions at CAN Capital, a pioneer in alternative small business finance, and Global Lending Services, a SAFCO competitor.
SAFCO mentioned Gang has also successfully led risk management teams for both Hyundai Capital America and Wells Fargo Auto Finance.
“His impressive career has focused on decision and operations analytics, credit risk and portfolio management, collections strategy, strategic planning and product development,” SAFCO said.
Gang shared his perspective on his latest professional post.
“It’s great to join a leading organization like SAFCO, and I’m looking forward to helping the company strategically grow through leveraging data and technology,” he said.
A legal expert who has appeared multiple times at Used Car Week and other industry events now is the newest partner at Venable.
The law firm with locations in six states and the nation’s capital announced this week that Allen Denson has joined the firm as a partner in its financial services practice at its Washington, D.C., office.
Denson develops and implements strategies for financial institutions navigating regulatory examinations, investigations, enforcement actions, litigation, or inquiries by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, as well as federal banking regulators such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve Board. Denson also has extensive experience in coordinating client representation when interacting with state attorneys general and various state regulatory bodies.
Venable highlighted that Denson has significant experience representing companies that provide consumer financial services, including lenders, sales finance companies, fintechs, banks, auto dealers and other financial services companies. He also represents clients nationwide in litigation related to federal and state consumer financial law.
Along with time as a partner at Hudson Cook, Denson previously served as a senior attorney at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Enforcement & Compliance Division. There he handled all aspects of agency investigations, litigation, and regulatory inquiries involving both safety and soundness and consumer protection issues, against financial institutions and institution-affiliated parties.
Denson advised bank supervision staff and senior agency officials regarding a wide range of issues arising under federal banking and consumer laws, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. He also assisted examiners in the supervision and resolution of problem banks under OCC examination.
Portfolio chief sales officer Dan Haugen has retired in a move effective Dec. 31.
And the F&I solutions provider didn’t have to look far for a replacement, turning to David Neuenschwander, president of National Automotive Experts and NWAN, the Strongsville, Ohio-based company acquired by Portfolio last year.
“Dan Haugen has filled numerous leadership roles during his 15 years at Portfolio and has been a big part of our amazing growth,” Portfolio President and chief executive officer Brent Griggs said in a news release. “We are excited to see him pursue his other goals in retirement.”
The company highlighted Haugen’s tenure included the management of product development, sales, technology and compliance teams. He is credited with helping to drive Portfolio’s growth in the highly competitive and rapidly consolidating reinsurance and F&I product provider and administrator segments.
“I am excited about moving on with my life and spending time with family and on hobbies that I couldn’t while working full-time,” Haugen said. “But I will miss my Portfolio family and the feeling that comes with working for a company that is considered the best at what we do — not the biggest, but if you are the best, you will be the biggest someday.”
Neuenschwander joined NAE/NWAN as national sales manager in 2010 after working in his family’s central Missouri dealership and spending 13 years as an account executive and regional sales manager with Universal Underwriters/Zurich. At NAE/NWAN, he earned promotions to director of agency development and vice president of sales before being named president in 2017.
“David’s background is uniquely suited to Portfolio since he really understands the needs of a dealer through his own involvement with his family’s dealership,” Griggs said.
“Beyond that, he has clearly proven himself in key leadership roles for two of our competitors,” Griggs continued. “We are very fortunate to have him on the Portfolio team.”
Neuenschwander shared his perspective on taking on this position following Haugen.
“What Dan has brought to this company is worthy of being celebrated. He is a top-notch individual who has driven not only growth but value for all our partners — dealers, agents, managing directors and many more. Clearly, I have some big shoes to fill,” Neuenschwander said.
“The foundation Dan helped create, which I am fortunate to walk on, is very solid and very deep. I am excited to take the baton and see where this company can go and how it can grow in this ever-changing industry and environment,” Neuenschwander went on to say.
