Another former high-level Cox Automotive executive has landed with a different automotive technology company.

Sid Nair, who spent a little less than a year as chief sales officer at Cox Automotive, on Monday became chief executive officer at Affinitiv, a leading provider of data-driven marketing and software solutions to the automotive market.

Affinitiv also announced that Nair will join the company’s board.

According to a news release, Nair brings more than 25 years of experience running large-scale technology companies with a strong executive leadership background that spans general management, sales and marketing, revenue growth and transformation. 

Nair joins Affinitiv from Rackspace, where he was the executive vice president and general manager of the Americas region, running a $2 billion P&L with 1,500 associates across sales, delivery, operations, marketing, product and solutions. 

At Rackspace, the company said Nair delivered the best three sales quarters in Rackspace history following several quarters of decline. 

Prior to Rackspace, Nair was chief sales officer for Cox Automotive, where he led a 3,000 member sales and marketing team across Cox Automotive’s 25 brands. Prior to Cox, Nair held executive leadership roles at DXC Technology, Dell Services and Wipro Technologies.

As part of a planned transition process, Steve Anderson, chairman and AutoLoop founder, will continue to be involved with the company in a chairman role, focused on strategy, products and key customer relationships. 

“Sid has a proven track record of driving transformative growth at large-scale technology companies,” Anderson said in the news release. “He’s singularly focused on growth and has accomplished that at every company he’s worked with in the past. 

“Sid is an extremely positive, high-energy, engaging and motivating leader. He has a customer-first mentality and is a strong champion for all internal team members as well. I’m very pleased that we have someone of Sid’s caliber to serve as our new CEO and look forward to seeing his immediate impact on the business,” Anderson went on to say.

During the past 12 months, Affinitiv has continued to expand its product offering with a focus on high-value data, analytics, marketing and software solutions that can help dealerships maximize customer retention and revenue throughout the entire ownership lifecycle.

Today, Affinitiv offers a fully integrated technology platform purpose-built for OEMs and dealerships that spans retention marketing, equity mining, online scheduling, service lane software and digital marketing solutions.  Affinitiv’s proprietary analytics platform can provide sophisticated customer and marketing insights based on a combination of unique data sets from OEMs, dealerships and third parties.

“Affinitiv enjoys an impressive customer roster, a strong and differentiated product offering, a consultative, partnership-oriented mentality, and an amazing group of highly talented and motivated individuals,” Nair said. 

“The automotive aftermarket continues to be critical to the health and prosperity of both OEMs and dealerships and we believe we are uniquely positioned to help them improve the customer experience, increase loyalty, and optimize service and parts performance,” he continued.

“Affinitiv represents a highly unique opportunity to leverage the differentiated assets we have today to drive immediate value for our customers and introduce new innovative offerings,” Nair went on to say.

CIP Capital managing partner Justin Lipton also shared his perspective on what bringing Nair aboard could do for Affinitive

“We have continued to make significant investments in technology, data and analytics, with a focus on strengthening the value and insights we can offer to our OEM and dealer partners,” Lipton said. “Across his past experiences, Sid has consistently reshaped the business to create a winning culture with teams that believe in a growth vision, thrive together, beat competition, delight customers and deliver profitable growth. 

“We believe that Sid brings a strong operational playbook that, paired with our differentiated product set and commitment to innovation, will drive tremendous long-term growth,” Lipton said.