Auto Remarketing is recognizing the 2021 Women in Remarketing honorees in the March issue of the magazine, and will be posting Q&As with each of these outstanding leaders on the website.

Next up is Stephanie Jacoob, who is associate vice president of reconditioning at Cox Automotive.

Auto Remarketing: What do you enjoy most about working in the remarketing industry? But, also, what aspect(s) of the business would you change — and how?

Stephanie Jacoob: Working in vehicle remarketing is dynamic and exciting. The fast pace, high volume and technological advancements are a true adrenaline rush. However, the aspect I enjoy most about working in remarketing is the why behind what my teams and I set out to accomplish every day. Why do we do what we do? We do it because we know that we are helping people get to the places they want and need to be.

In my role, we recondition the high-quality cost-effective used automobiles that get them there. Whether it’s getting kids to school on time, a grandmother to a doctor’s appointment, or just a destressing drive along Pacific Coast Highway, we are privileged to be an integral part of folks’ transportation options and solutions.

In an industry that has continuously and deliberately experienced and created positive change and growth, it is hard to identify an unaddressed need for change. One of the changes that I’m most excited about — and most proud of — is the great strides the automotive industry as a whole has taken in addressing our environmental responsibilities. Large and small changes, ranging from clean energy vehicles to chemical and water-free detailing. Our innovations are necessary, as is our continued and increasing energies and efforts, to protect and sustain our environment.

AR: What are some improvements that need to be made in the industry from a diversity and inclusion perspective? What are some examples you’ve seen of D&I programs that have worked?

SJ: I see diversity and inclusion being important on more than just an industry level. Fully recognizing, appreciating and mobilizing diversity as an organizational strength benefits any industry. Specifically to the remarketing industry, as we look to provide both short-term and long-term solutions for used-car sales, ownership and use, it is important that our teams represent and understand the vehicular needs, problems and solutions of the communities and clients we serve. It’s just as important to understand the experiences of the people, our team members, who provide those solutions.

As a Cox Automotive Inc. team member, it is with great pride that I share with you a piece of our value statement regarding diversity. “Bringing people together from different disciplines, cultures and generations with different experiences enables us to perform better … We value every voice, respect differences and embrace transparency.” The living embodiment of this statement is in the development of employee resource groups, open-forum diversity discussions, and leadership dedication to keeping diversity a core value.

AR: Describe a time when you were either a mentor or a mentee, and how that has shaped your career.

SJ: Throughout my life and career, I’ve been blessed with many great mentors. Family members, leaders, close friends, peers, and team members. Each one has contributed to my development, knowledge, and success. Each one taught me something that I needed to learn at that time — in that moment.

Each lesson building upon the last and readying me for the next, helped me view problems as new and exciting challenges. This has been instrumental in helping me succeed in the fast-changing remarketing industry. It also taught me that most have something to share and to teach if you’re willing to listen and learn. As a mentor, my goal is to honor that blessing by supporting, challenging, and teaching those around me in a collaborative learning space.

Two teachings foundational to my mentoring approach are Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” and the science-based documentary “Happy.” I genuinely believe that people deserve the opportunity to perform work that they love; work that makes them happy.

This largely drives my mentoring style in first, helping folks to understand and communicate their definition of happiness and second, to form a plan that helps them to create and achieve that definition of happiness in their work. A common piece of feedback that I receive is how profoundly thought provoking the documentary is and how empowering the act of improving workflows and tasks to create happiness feels.

AR: Describe a time in your career where you were challenged and how you overcame that challenge.

SJ: “Unprecedented” has been a word largely attached to the year 2020 and the global COVID-19 crisis. Certainly, the challenges were unlike anything I’ve previously experienced in my career. My No. 1 priority was (and remains) keeping my teams and my clients safe while still executing the services we are relied upon to provide.

The most important success factor I had in meeting this challenge was the shared commitment and unwavering dedication to safety demonstrated by Cox Automotive leadership and the Cox Family.

In the reconditioning world,  we’re quite accustomed to the use of personal protective equipment. But the coronavirus represented risks we’d never encountered before. When the very nature of our collaborative interactions regarding production training, quality reviews and shared workspaces proved to be conduits for viral transmissions, we had to get creative in our safety-minded solutions. Our leaders made it clear that nothing was more important than our safety and the safety of the families we go home to each night. It was through this lens we were able to design process and operational changes. This alignment throughout our organization and supply chain partners resulted in some very effective solutions.

Strategic scheduling, digital department bulletin boards, mobile mech techs, and sanitizing stations are just a few that have helped us perform our work at a safe physical distance.

AR: What is the top trend/storyline in the remarketing industry that you’re watching this year?

SJ: There are so many new developing technologies, products and services in the remarketing industry. I’m genuinely curious about all of them, but one that sticks out in my mind as potentially culture-shaping in the ownership and use of used vehicles is the emerging subscription-based retail platforms.

I appreciate the ease of entry onto the platform, the menu of services, and driving options membership provides. I’m excited to see how this platform will offer new options to retail drivers. As a remarketer, our focus is on examining how we best support this platform from a fleet perspective: inventory acquisitions, preventative maintenance services, repair services, and end-of-product life cycle services.

AR: What is something you would tell your younger self if you could go back to when you started your career in remarketing?

SJ: I have been working in the remarketing industry since my late 20s. I entered the industry first as a finance leader, then moved into operations and continuous improvement and now I serve as a reconditioning leader.

I have had this amazing career filled with people who have enriched my work experience, have helped make me a better team member, a better leader, and in many regards a better person. To each one of them I owe a great deal of appreciation. These relationships are what I hold closest to me now and what I will take with me on that eventual day of retirement.

As I look back at my career (and believe me, the older I get the more 20/20 my retrospect becomes!), I think I could have appreciated this fact a little more.  

As many young people do, I naively  believed my colleagues, my clients and friends would always be around. That my ambition in the relentless pursuit of results was the most important way for me to spend my time and provide value to my clients, company, and team. Whatever the reasons then, time has a way of reconciling those misconceptions.

Yes, it’s good to work hard, and it’s great to get results. Those characteristics have afforded me exceptional opportunities. However, if there was one thing I wish I could say to my younger self it would be, “Never say no to a lunch invitation.”