The IndustryCommentary & Insights

Sales and Marketing Director of Parts Edge The Start Growing up, my dad was a carpenter and worked in construction, and my mom would occasionally work jobs to supplement our income. At one point she helped my grandpa run his garage door company, but she mostly managed the home and was always there for us. I remember calling out sick from school sometimes because I wanted to hang out with her at home. In 2008, the recession impacted my family, along with so many others, quite severely. My dad lost his job and it seemed like no one was hiring. But other things were going on that we didn’t realize then. My dad had become addicted to painkillers after injuring his back on the job years prior. He was still working, but then the crash happened, and everything fell apart.  We lost our home and our vehicles. It was a really tough time for us. Luckily I had already started working. My older brother was my role model. He started working at 15 and had his own car by 16. I wanted to be like him, independent.  A friend of mine was working at Subway, she got me an interview, and I got the job. I didn’t have a car yet, and I was so fortunate that my parents would often drive me to and from work. I had always loved Subway as a kid, so it was a perfect fit for me. I remember working a lot, especially at night. I was in high school at the time and took a work experience class. We had to log our work experience hours for credit, and I remember that mine had to be under-reported due to my age. I was around 16 then; so much had happened in such a short time.  The Foundations “I remember seeing people in suits and thinking: I want that. I want to have a career.” The owner of the Subway store approached me and asked me if I would like to manage the new Subway store she was opening up the road. She was building the store from the ground up, launching a new franchise business; it was an excellent opportunity for me. Also, the store shared a parking lot with PartsEdge . It actually still does. I always wanted to work, but I never really dreamed of going to college in a traditional sense, and after everything that happened, I really didn’t want to take on that kind of debt. That said, working in a leadership position at such a young age, I was still in my late teens at the time, and interacting with customers taught me so much. I knew that I wanted to develop and grow into a career.  I had settled in well and was really enjoying the responsibility when two of our regulars came into the Store and spoke to me about a vacancy they had at their business across the lot, PartsEdge. I didn’t know anything about automotive or parts at the time, but something felt right about it. I knew it was an opportunity that I needed to take. I started out in a client support role. I had always been interested in the sales function of the Business, but there was yet to be a vacancy. I spent some time with PartsEdge and loved the company, but the longer I worked, the more I realized I needed to be in sales. So I decided to pursue a new opportunity that would push me and allow me to pursue my goals of building a career in sales; I got my Real Estate license.  “I had my license for about a year, sold a few houses, and realized that this just wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy. I didn’t fit in.” It was around that time that I heard that there was a vacancy for a salesperson at PartsEdge and so I contacted them. I had always known that we could have done more, and I had big ideas and goals that I believed could really impact the company; they were giving me the opportunity to implement them.  The Wins  “It was tempting to do everything, but I realized that I couldn’t do it alone, and we needed help.” The first task was to update our brand and website. It wasn’t delivering the message we wanted to convey. Initially, I was unsure what to do and needed to figure things out. I was new to marketing but it felt natural. I spoke with clients, got testimonials, had conversations with my bosses, and understood our brand’s purpose. I had also met someone through the real estate business who specialized in marketing and was starting her company. We hired her to help us update our website and assist us with strategically aligning the company. After talking to many parts managers, I realized that they needed more resources, and by providing them, we could increase awareness and interest in our company. We worked on marketing campaigns and connecting with customers, which required constant attention and focus. LinkedIn was an excellent platform to showcase our brand and connect with others in the industry. The more we engaged our customers, the more it became evident that pushing our technology, alongside our technical understanding of their needs, could greatly serve our customers and our industry. Parts managers deal with a lot of data and can significantly benefit from advanced technology and focused strategies. It’s incredible how much impact this can have on the success of a parts department. “Parts need the same attention and care as used cars.”  Some parts managers manage around 20,000+ parts in their database, and if dealers treat them as they treat their used car department, they would see better results. The goal is to give them the tools to figure out what they need to deliver a better customer experience. Utilizing data and market demand, we are helping our customers figure out when they need parts and, overall, improving the department’s efficiency. There is a huge need for technology to effectively manage and support the parts department, we provide that alongside a deep technical understanding of their department’s challenges and the opportunities that come with it. The Future I set goals last year that I initially thought were unattainable. I wrote them down anyway. Surprisingly, not only did I achieve my goals, but I even exceeded them, which feels amazing.  I want to continue growing, I am setting even bigger goals. More dealers are starting to understand our products and services and how it can impact their business. I strongly believe in the value of what we offer, and it’s rewarding to see the excitement of parts managers who have been in the industry for many years, who have so much experience, who are successful at what they do, ask me, “where has this been all my career?” Our idea is not new, no one else on the market does what we do and our marketing and sales strategy is giving it the light it deserves.  Personally, I am recognising that it’s okay to desire more, to want to grow and to not feel guilty about what I am achieving. I never thought I would be able to be a mom and have a career. I am so appreciative of everything around me but I am learning that it is ok to continue to strive. I am learning to believe in myself, to accept the success and to appreciate what I have. I will of course continue to host my podcast, The Parts Girl Podcast. I look forward to the people I am yet to meet, to interview them, to learn about them. Seeing their joy in sharing their experiences and learning from them is very fulfilling.

Director of Sales Northeast Kelley Blue Book ICO at Cox Automotive Inc. "I thought I wanted to be a Marine Biologist, but I didn't want to live on a boat for three years studying algae." The Start Jacci is a self-described "girly-girl" and the idea of not having running water or electricity on board would result in a diverse career path change. One involving Disney, WEEI-FM Sports Radio, and an incredible tale involving a committed recruiter called Felix, who played a large role in introducing Jacci to in-depth learning in the world of automotive.  Jacci Grillo-Noto: I grew up in upstate New York, an only child with two parents who were married my whole life.  My dad was an engineer, but he was also an executive on the board of the IBEW, the union for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. As an engineer, he would wear a jumper all day and then change into a suit to attend board meetings by night. I thought it was just fascinating. My mother was an artist, and she was hired to draw the first personal computers. Unfortunately, those personal computers she drew replaced her, and that was where her technical artist career ended.  DMM: "I was technical, business and art-oriented," she shares, "well rounded, but an unusual combination at the same time." Jacci decided to pursue business studies, took many Administration, Economics, Human Resources, and Law courses, and attended college in Florida, Rhode Island, and New York.  Jacci Grillo-Noto: I was living in Providence and still in my early twenties when I became very sick. I had been diagnosed with cancer. And I was so young and naive; I was focused on the test I had to study for, the friends I wanted to meet for dinner. My mother had come up from New York to take care of me. We went through that for three years. I had an incredible doctor who was methodical and took good care of me. Eventually, my health insurance was running out. So I left school and got a job as a bank teller. I worked my way up and became an assistant branch manager before I realized I could make such a bigger impact as a mortgage broker.  After some time went by and the business began to change, I remember thinking how strange it was to be able to offer mortgages without detailed documentation. Before all of that began to collapse, I left the mortgage business voluntarily. Something didn't feel right.  The Foundations "I went to work for Disney."  I had worked for Disney in college in Florida. I worked for Radio Disney who was first owned by ABC television, then by the Disney Channel. I got to do a lot of work with some of the up-and-coming Disney Channel tween stars. These kids had their own TV shows, and I was planning events surrounding their arrivals for concerts and appearances in Providence, Boston, Albany, and Hartford markets. My daughter Jessica was around 12 at that time. It was the perfect age for her to hang out backstage with all these tween stars. I loved working for Disney and taking my daughter to all the events with me. I was very fulfilled. I started noticing a shift toward digital, which seemed important to me. However, no one was focused on monetizing digital at Radio Disney locally yet.  I felt that Disney wasn't doing enough quick enough then. Digital was just starting to become a new marketing channel when I was approached by WEEI Sports Radio.  The Wins "We want you to teach seasoned radio people how to sell non-traditional media." They already had established online traffic, but selling digital marketing space was brand new to WEEI. It was my first Director of Sales role. I thought okay, I have this title. I have this suit on; it was yellow and black, resembling something Hillary Clinton would wear. I pulled out all the stops, it was intimidating, and I wanted to show up. I put everything sports-related that I owned on display in my office. I had baseball cards. I had a homerun baseball that somebody in high school gave me. I had pictures with some ex-Yankees that I put up. I didn't realize how important it was that these were rival teams! This had been a really big transition and completely new, but it was one of the best experiences of my life.  Although I had played and watched sports with my father my whole life, I never really understood a fan's obsession with rivalries because NY had so many teams. Finally, I began to experience how love for a sports team or sports brand could translate to marketing. It was also my first time working in a male-dominated industry. I brought a lot of marketing knowledge to the table and was willing to learn and adapt to the unknown. I learned so much there. "We went from $0 to $12 million in billing” I unfortunately got sick again. My personal life was deeply impacted. I ended up fighting cancer and going through a divorce at the same time. It was probably the most heart breaking time in my life. I went back to work, and I wasn't really happy. I wasn't fulfilled anymore. I needed a change. I had a bunch of companies recruiting me. Autotrader had been knocking at my door for a while. I remember telling the recruiter, Felix. I don't want to work for you. I don't want to work for your paper magazine because I’ve been in the digital space so long. I was polite, but I was just not considering it at all. He was persistent and eventually he led from a perspective that he knew would spark my interest; "I want you to look up this Cox Automotive website, look at what they do for the community, look at the culture."  They had gone completely digital, and everything that really mattered to me was there and I almost missed it. As a digital creator and a repeat volunteer for dozens of organizations, I saw what I needed to see to convince me to pursue a career future with Cox Auto. I didn't click immediately. I was good at certain aspects and then not so great at other aspects of the job. So they sent me to NADA Academy, and I had the opportunity to work in an office at an eight-rooftop dealer once a week. I would engage and meet with everyone in the dealership and began to understand the business from the inside. I started to fully embrace and understand the industry and the people. It was an amazing segment and experience. "At the time, my book of business had 65 dealers. Now I oversee 50,000 dealers in my book."  I ended up being number one in my divisions for many years. I won top awards for several consecutive years and have been promoted seven times. After my entry level position,  I became a Product Specialist, a Regional Sales Manager helping launch Kelley Blue Book on the listings side when Cox bought the site, and then went into Trade-In Marketplace leadership. I am now the Director of Sales for Kelly Blue Book Instant Cash Offer, and I feel that I have come full circle in my career. The Future I have always been focused on impacting the teams I work with. The bigger the team, the more people I can impact, those are the accomplishments to which I look forward. I believe in individual development plans, building trust, investing in people, and helping them grow. My approach to leading teams and driving sales has always been to start with an analysis of the weaknesses, which to me, are opportunities. Performance gaps are often gaps in learning. My coaching approach is to understand the gaps and create a structured plan to fill them.  I believe that personal development is important. I recently graduated from Purdue University. Even though the whole world was going through a pandemic, I knew that I needed to get up, exercise, and get ready for my day, and at night, I would go to class and study. This directly impacted my son, Ethan, who wrote about how I had influenced him in a school project. It is important to understand how influence can drive progress and help mould those around you.  I want to spend the next few years impacting people inside and outside the automotive community by sharing my experiences. Right now I am getting so much joy from meeting with and speaking to local high school students. I feel like it is such an important time in their lives, and I want to continue to provide coaching and support their career preparation. But, of course, I plan on doing this all while still building my career with Cox. I want to retire from here; I remain completely committed to my team, the brand, and our communities. 

Principal at SurgeMetrix The Start Adam Dennis grew up in Rhode Island and described himself as “a relatively athletic geek”. He played football and track and field, but also loved reading books on science such as Isaac Asimov's Guide to Science . Adam says that he started working early with a yard business in his neighborhood and serving as a commercial fisherman with his brother. “I had to save money for college, which drove me to work hard. I did anything I could to get ahead.” “I have done a lot of different things. I like to keep busy.” Meeting with Adam Dennis to talk shop is like sitting down and plugging into several educational podcasts simultaneously. His energy, speed, and ability to navigate numerous topics and bring them back around are remarkable. Moreover, he is knowledgeable about technology, cybersecurity, the power of data, and marketing, making for a great combination of skills and experience. The desire to work hard and do anything to “get ahead” is reflected through Adam’s early years after college. Adam Dennis:  In graduate school, I started a nonprofit graduate student organization dedicated to issues important to our student community. I worked with grad students from around the US (well before the Internet was popular). To fund our organization, and address a critical need for many of us, we started a national health insurance plan for grad students, sold from school to school. What’s amazing, and quite rewarding, is that the organization is still around to this day!    DMM: A few years later, Adam started another nonprofit that provided training to at-risk youth trying to get out of the drug trade in Washington, DC.  “It was quite successful, only two blocks from the White House,” Adam shares. “The kids traveled across the city after finishing school and took training courses in website development and network security.” Educational professionals visited the program from as far away as Japan to discuss the program’s methods and objectives. “We enjoyed what we did and it showed. I take this same attitude with everything that I do to this day.”   “As for my start in automotive, it was largely a fluke.” The Foundations Adam Dennis: I started a SaaS company in Baltimore in 2000. We began by offering a website CMS to a wide range of customers, but then branched into providing it to car dealers shortly after we started. From there, we customized the CMS for dealers and added a whole bunch of other tools, from an inventory display solution, to lead tracking and various other customized tools focused on optimizing dealer operations. I ran the company for five years and then sold it in 2005. DMM: Adam moved to Antigua after he sold the business. “My wife is from the Caribbean, and my in-laws live in Antigua,” he shared. “They are two of the best people I have ever met, so I wanted my kids to grow up around their grandparents instead of just seeing them every 6 months. So, in December 2005, we packed up our house and moved to the islands.” The Wins Adam Dennis: I consulted for several years, both inside and outside of automotive. Then, Dominion Enterprises, who had bought my company, asked me to come on as VP of Software Development and improve the operations of all of their acquisitions’ software teams. “Many of the acquisitions had tech teams that worked hard, but needed to integrate, and have a shared best practice driven value system for producing and engineering their software. That was my job: optimize teams and improve the stability and usability of the software that we produced.”  DMM: After six years, Adam had achieved the mission. “I had done what I was asked to do, so I approached the leadership and informed them that I was no longer needed. That might be surprising to some, but I took this action because I never want to be the Maytag repair guy who sits around with little to do. To Dominion’s credit, I was given a nice package and left the company in 2019.” Adam took some time off before being approached again by Dominion, “I ended up buying their web arm, a part of which I had originally owned and sold to them back in 2005.” Adam and his team reshaped the business, and SurgeMetrix was born.  Adam Dennis: The company was struggling when we acquired it, so for the next six months we focused on stabilizing our revenue, collecting data, evaluating options, and, most importantly, making our customers happy. We reshaped our image and began offering Hispanic marketing services alongside our website and other SaaS offerings. We were doing well, until the COVID crisis and chip shortage hit. This led us to expand our offering to include rich data on the digital ecosystem around a dealer website, such as the demographic composition of the community around the dealership, competitor positioning, and website performance. We needed data so we wrote software that could analyze dealer website performance across the country as well pull in demographic and advertising data too. This data was used to inform work we did for our customers so that we could be sure we gave them the best services possible whether for a Google optimized website or Hispanic marketing services. The pieces fell into place.  “Some dealers spend 100% of their budget on 60% or 70% of their market. It makes no sense.” There is a lot of bad marketing going on in our industry. We have found that in some places, especially around big cities, the Hispanic population is as high as 30-40%. If you operated out of Boston, you wouldn't ignore the Irish culture in your marketing plan, but instead would shape messaging accordingly. Good luck if you ignored St. Paddy’s Day! When the chip shortage hit, many of the dealers in our pipeline decided to hold off on marketing until things settled down. So, we pivoted and started talking to OEMs about data points on the Hispanic population. This was in response to one OEM’s inquiry about the density and composition of Hispanic populations in different parts of the country. Our data service, SurgeRecon, provides information that allows us to analyze the digital ecosystem around the dealership and its competitors. We have successfully built a double-barrel approach to our service and product offering for the dealer community. Efficient websites, and the Hispanic data to position the marketing message specific to the location, are all backed by data. “There was a time when we were not concerned with website sales, but we realized that they were selling without us allocating resources to that part of the business. We have discovered it is in our DNA. We create websites that load quickly, are easy to use, and are focused on selling cars.” The Future Adam Dennis: Finding and solving pain points for dealers is important to us. SEO, an incredibly valuable part of any marketing strategy, too often is ignored or seen as a costly option if the strategy is to generate keyword rich content on a regular basis. Enter SurgeAI, a new solution that we’ve assembled from our tight little team of programmers.   Think about the work that it takes to produce a steady supply of keyword rich content for social media and a dealer website… You need to decide on the messaging, get someone to write the content, and then push it online.   What if instead you could use a tool to quickly identify topics and then generate unique content for your dealership, a dealer group, or even an OEM, which has hundreds of dealers, in only a matter of minutes? Too good to be true? Nope.   What if you could also take that same content and automatically translate this content into Spanish flavored to the dominant country of origin around a dealership? Is that too good to be true? Again, no. SurgeAI can do both with ease. “This is fun stuff. It reduces what used to take days to produce, down to just seconds and minutes.”   Making things even more enticing, we’re creating APIs to feed this rich content to social media outlets such as Facebook and a dealer’s Google Business Profile. Business is flowing and what started as a tough challenge, has begun taking shape. We recognise our DNA which is rooted in our data recon abilities, and we are committed to creating solutions that help dealers succeed in an affordable way.  DMM: Adam and his team enjoy their work and love working with dealers. Adam likes talking about the dealers that have become friends over the years and the role relationships play in the business. He also loves data, a core component of all of his articles.  With much more to come, we look forward to what new things he and his team will do and discuss through Dealer Marketing Magazine.

Retail is NOT a physical location. RETAIL IS AN EXPERIENCE.  This statement may raise questions, prompt pushback, or lead to realizations. Retail across all industries began to shift long ago. We can credit or fault disruptors like Amazon for pushing the boundaries and expanding the concept of retail to include digital experiences. But even Amazon has blurred the line between physical and digital with pick-up/drop-off hot spots and a few retail store outlets. While I don't love the term "phygital," it conveys the idea that physical and digital are now blended and part of a single experience. Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse, stated that "the future of retail is the integration of internet and digital experiences and services with the retail network." This is an interesting perspective, but what does it mean for automotive retail? The industry was already experiencing a significant shift, which was further disrupted by the global pandemic. This disruption was compounded by a significant supply shortage that caused inventory issues. As a result, we are now facing fast-moving customer expectations and shifting business models in the industry. Despite the uncertain future, there are numerous paths to achieve greater value and opportunity. The questions become: what do we want to be, and how can we deliver it?  We must develop core capabilities to flex our muscles and future-proof our business. What could it look like? Sometimes it's easier to look outside of our own industry for examples and benchmarks to understand the actual experience and benefits without getting caught up in what can and can't be done in our own business. In the world of the Future of Retail, I would like to bring up Disney, perhaps surprisingly. Not the Disney store in your local mall, but the Disney Park in Orlando. If you've been there in the last 5-10 years, you've probably noticed the advancements in personalizing the entire experience. Here are a few highlights of what they provide (and the experiential capabilities): A personalized trip plan that's tailored to you and your family's needs and desires, created before you even depart for the trip Online and offline tools that work together to create a seamless experience The ability to meet the characters of your choice and highlight certain themes and areas of the park that are your favorites Suggestions on shows, pop-up meet-and-greets, and other immersive experiences to enhance the personalized engagement A connected bracelet is given or worn upon entry to the park to accommodate location-based services (tracking, payment, selected experiences) The ability to choose rides, preferred times of day, food selections, and other amenities in a planned and time-windowed preference Overall communication, alerts, and updates to facilitate the desired experience throughout the day. So, you say, that’s great, but what does that have to do with automotive retail or retail? I would suggest that this is exactly the future of the retail experience. Well, let’s break it down. It offers the basics of retail; goods and services available, shopping, buying, servicing, and experiences (that are very personalized). But it does it in a way that is so much more than transactional. This retail experience is: Personalized Needs-based Highly experiential Immersive Digital and Physical Supportive Memorable and ongoing (carries on after the original visit) Interactive …and extremely human-centric (despite all the bells and whistles, it is still focused on the people) Is there anything in the experience above that we think should not be possible or available in an auto retail experience? While the cost of Disney is getting extremely expensive, we still pay 10x-20x that amount for a vehicle transaction. Shouldn't acquiring a vehicle be as engaging, personalized, easy, delightful, memorable, and immersive as described by a customer? That's what we want in auto retail, yet we often fall short of these capabilities and benefits. While we may all agree that some or all of these elements would be desirable and beneficial, the challenge is in figuring out how to achieve them. So, what do we do? While recognizing the need for change and transformation is crucial, it's even more critical to determine how we can seize this opportunity and make it beneficial to our long-term success. How can we future-proof our business? I believe we need both a Mind Shift and a Business Shift. We cannot improve or achieve what we do not measure or set as objectives. The traditional measures of success in the automotive retail industry focus too heavily on transactional events. While sales, profits, and margins are important, the focus needs to be updated. To drive the necessary change and successful future business models in auto retail, we need a mindset shift. The following are some of the key areas where this shift is necessary: Experience-driven, not transaction driven Need Management over Lead Management Personalized, not mass marketed Customer-managed relationships (customer in control), not Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Human-centric, not Product-centric Omni-channel experiences, not one-channel events Human-centric, not product-centric Restructuring of Talent Management and compensation aimed at customers for life and experiences, not transactions. These may sound obvious, but without these as objectives, supported measurements, and infused into our business model and business processes, they do not happen. These must become our North Star view of success and capabilities. They also need measurement, training, focus, and ongoing innovation and support. Thus, next comes the business shift. We are witnessing numerous pilots and experiments in new retail storefronts and immersive design, as demonstrated by Porsche. We are also observing new sales and demand management models, such as regional warehousing and agency sales models. Additionally, we are seeing a greater influx of technology beyond traditional dealer management systems. As a dealer, it can be more effective to start with the customer and their current and future needs, rather than simply implementing massive business model shifts and new technologies. Customers desire mobility, personalized offerings that meet their journey needs, and an easy, trustworthy, and accessible process that fits their schedule and preferred channel. Therefore, to truly understand the customer, we must capture all relevant data and insights possible, to be agile and flexible in assessing and executing against their needs. Although dealers currently possess a lot of data, we lack a clear and visible view into one customer, one journey, with multiple needs. Furthermore, our current business model and capabilities do not make it easy for us to proactively respond and offer solutions to those customer needs. Unless the customer engages us, we typically do not discover and meet their needs until it is too late. Assuming that our goal and North Star is to enhance the customer experience beyond the basic transactional model of today, we need to align our data and insights, metrics and measures of success, people and training, processes and workflows, and tools and enablers to support that target operating model. Currently, a sequential, transactional, one-way experience is the norm, and trying to restructure outcomes from within that framework is ineffective. Instead, we must change the operating model and framework to align with the new definition of success. This is a simple concept, but not easy to execute. It requires clear goals, alignment, and an agile, ever-transforming process. Some of the key business shifts will include: More insightful use of data Processes and workflows focused on experience, not transactions New key metrics and objectives instilled and measured Talent Management and Reward structure in line with the objectives Building of agile capabilities aimed at customer experience and mobility access for customer A defined Target Operating Model to address the “to be” state …there is much more to continually do, but it does start with getting a clear vision of “your customer experience” and how you can deliver against that. Just start, and keep going. Never stop. Customers evolve. Their expectations grow. The industry of mobility is continuously transforming. We must continue to become “platforms of mobility access meeting customer needs wherever, and however, their personal journey requires it.” Steve Jobs said, “you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward for the technology.” I fully agree but would only add: “Start with defining your customer experience North Star, then build out the tools and processes to support it.” And never stop. The timing and delivery of your customer’s experience will be an ever-lasting, continuous journey, and one built as an enterprise capability (a muscle you can flex), not as a project, one-time program, or technology.

Director of Automotive Strategy, Acxiom The Start "I followed a girl to Detroit; that's where it all started." Steve Schmith was paying his way through college working at Olive Garden when he met a girl. "I had been working there a couple of years and had just clocked in for a normal shift. I walked around the corner, and there she was on her first day training. I knew right then she was the one.  Seven years later and a move to Detroit, we got married.”  Looking back he says that was likely the most influential moment that sparked a lifelong career in the automotive industry.  He’s always been a good storyteller and it’s something that has served him well in a journey that has included being a communications specialist at an automotive supplier, nearly two decades with Deloitte and a stint at Automotive News. All of that has led Steve to head up Industry Strategy for Automotive at Acxiom . We had the privilege of hearing Steve’s story. A story that naturally includes lessons learned, challenges overcome and successes celebrated over the years. But also a story filled with layers of being human; growth that comes from experiences and wisdom, mistakes made and striving to help others not make those same mistakes, encouraging people to try new things. “Afterall,” he says,  “what’s the downside? Failure? So what, it happens to everyone.” That’s a side of Steve that is not always obvious. If you know Steve, you know he has a lot of energy.   He has competed in triathlon since 2009, in addition to leading and moderating industry-defining panels, authoring thought leadership,  and sharing points of view on industry trends and the impact on automotive brands throughout the value chain . It all began when Steve walked over to the Mass Communications Building at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville (SIUE). “I had found my people, after spending three years studying nursing” he smiled. “I remember doing reel-to-reel,” Steve explains how you would physically cut and attach pieces to splice tapes. He studied journalism and loved writing, television, and radio production. The “mix of storytelling” had impacted him; he had found his calling, which would serve as a strong foundation for his career.  “You have to be a good storyteller. Whatever the medium, or audience, and what I studied served me well.”  Steve had walked past so many posters in the halls of journalism school, posters for the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, “nobody moved to Detroit,” he smiled. Three years later, his life would change.  The Foundations “She calls me, and she asks, you want to go?” Steve’s future wife had just been promoted and given responsibility for the state of Michigan. One U-Haul, one car-on-a -trailer, one Prince tennis bag, and a one-way ticket to Detroit later, and Steve had found himself witnessing snow, in May.  Steve Schmith: Our first weekend in Detroit together, we hopped in my car and decided to drive around.  We found ourselves at a coffee shop in Dearborn, MI flipping through the classifieds, and there was a job for a communication specialist at a very small auto supplier that did outsourced purchasing for some of Detroit Three automakers at the time. I knew nothing about the industry, absolutely nothing. I applied at multiple places, but I remember this one in particular. I called them every Monday. They hired me and gave me a chance.  “Ultimately, that started my career in automotive and marketing communications.” I learned a lot about the industry, and quite frankly, looking back, I think procurement was probably the best place in the automotive value chain, at least for me, to start. It exposed me to how that entire value chain was structured. Suppliers, tier one, tier two, OEMs, the importance of supply chain, manufacturing, and all of the components of the ecosystem. It was a really good company, and I spent five years with them.  “I don’t think I had an appreciation or a clear pathway to what my career could be until 2003.” The Wins Steve cites the culture at Deloitte as one of the biggest influences in his career. “The investment, the challenges, the people,” he shares, “this is leadership, this is how to build relationships, this is how you think strategically.” Steve Schmith: I learned how to work with people who have different chemistries, and it’s literally that, we all have different DNA. How you bring people together, and in terms of shaping who I am as a professional and a leader, I attribute all of that to the Firm and its commitment to every one of its individuals. It was there where I had that a-ha moment. I began to develop in automotive, working with big brands, working with some of the smartest people I have ever met, and they invited me into the room, not just to listen but to share my ideas. The exposure you get and the opportunity to view things through a different lens has shaped me.  “I had a choice to make.” The tutelage, the trust, 17 years of exposure and growth, and the ability to build relationships in automotive had transformed Steve.  Marketing and consulting were within Steve’s capabilities, but they were not his defining identity. After 17 years with Deloitte, Steve realized that he was, at his core, an automotive professional.  Steve Schmith: I had to ask myself, do I love the Firm enough to do something else to achieve a title? Or do I leave, use what I learned, and not lose sight of what turned out to be the most important thing to me: 20 years of relationships I had established in the automotive industry? I was at a crossroads, and it was either staying with a company or within the industry. I chose to stay with the industry.  Automotive News was looking for somebody to lead their Data Center.  Steve started his journalism education, walking the halls of SIUE looking at posters advertising internships at the Detroit News and the Free Press. He had during his time at Deloitte led the Firm’s relationship with Automotive News and leading the data center felt like the right next move for his career.  It was both new and nostalgic "to be back in the newsroom." "Seventeen years with a company can create blinders and in some cases a sense of comfort. It wasn't until I made the move to Automotive News that those blinders came off that I looked up and could listen to my gut much more." Steve Schmith: The newsroom is literally a newsroom, and they were passing articles over the walls saying, "hey, can you edit this?' It's a very close-knit group of people; the best journalists in the automotive industry. I was there for about a week until COVID hit. The question then becomes, how do you help strategically lead a business through these major changes? I learned a lot there. I was trusted to co-host the Automotive News Daily Drive Podcast and to be the Director of the PACE Program which is their program which celebrates early-stage, supplier-led innovation. Those opportunities gave me the chance to talk to and learn from a lot of people and be at the forefront of very cool innovation underway in the industry.  We explored the science behind making EV batteries, how connected technologies could save lives, investments in advanced manufacturing, navigating some very turbulent times and how the deprecation of third-party cookies was forever going to change digital marketing.  All of that, says Steve, continued to prepare him for the role he has today at Acxiom. The Future Steve Schmith:  “I am more tuned in, and I listen more to my intuition.”  I found myself at a crossroads again, sooner than I expected. I read this job description from Acxiom, and it is exactly right. Thought leadership, industry strategy, strong industry relationships, and media representation. I get a call, and they begin to illustrate the role in more detail: a perfect hybrid of my experience at both Deloitte and Automotive News.  The work to be done drew me to the role, it sounded challenging. I had heard about the digital transformation underway in digital marketing from guests on the podcasts. The team at Automotive News was itself working through that transformation. For me, it was about the opportunity to continue growing that was very appealing. And I knew this was where the industry was going. Questions around how you create personal consumer experiences when shopping for a car, how you create experiences as the inside of your car becomes an environment. As you look to the future, the necessity to own a car continues to diminish. We just had this conversation on stage at CES 2023. It's not going to take one brand; it's going to be this ecosystem of brands coming together to create these experiences. So this is the perfect spot for me. It is what I studied to do. It's my calling, and in a culture that I love.  “I am in an industry that I love, with people, a team that is world-class and a brand that I love.” I think what really matters is acknowledging the people behind the scenes who allow us to commit and integrate the way we do. The support at home is incredibly important. My journey started with my wife, and now my son is heading off to the same school that started it all for me.  What continues to resonate throughout this interview series is the humanness, the human centricity, of everyone we meet.  As Steve shared how his family have shaped his journey, and continue to do so, it becomes evident that the network we create around us, and the interconnectedness of it all comes down to human beings, telling human stories.  Steve’s story is one we have loved to tell. 

Co-Founder and CEO of RevolutionParts The Start "I was always intrigued by the States."  Originally from Egypt, Ibrahim’s family moved to Zambia when he was six months old. He attended a British international school and grew up in a multicultural environment. With many of his classmates originally from South Africa and the UK, the default choice for college was not necessarily the US.   Ibrahim Mesbah: I loved Michael Jackson. American Nightrider was one of my favorite things to watch growing up. I was drawn to the States and decided to pursue an education in engineering there. I fell in love with the country and all the opportunities, so I ended up staying. It was quite a cultural change. Ibrahim didn't grow up in the capital of Zambia, Lusaka, “I was in a smaller city called Ndola,” he shared, “it was very sheltered, very close-knit. I had never seen a phone booth before." Ibrahim Mesbah: I remember being at the airport. I was trying to make a phone call, and yeah, there was a lot of learning very quickly right when I first moved here. The Foundations  "We left PayPal to start RevolutionParts." Ibrahim Mesbah: We started RevolutionParts about nine years ago. My co-founder, Andreas, and I worked at PayPal for about five years. At the time, PayPal was an eBay company.  We had the opportunity to work with the eBay team and had a growing passion for marketplaces, payments, and e-commerce. One of our mutual friends worked locally in Phoenix at a car dealership. We were struck by how hard it was for our friends to run a successful online business for parts and accessories.  That piqued our curiosity, and as we dug in, we saw it as an opportunity to take our passion for e-commerce and payments and marketplaces and bring a more modern consumer perspective to the automotive industry and solve some of those challenges. The Wins "We bootstrapped 10 million dollars."  Ibrahim Mesbah: We found about seven or eight companies in the space, but many of those solutions lacked what you'd expect from a modern e-commerce platform.  “We knew that we could do better.”  Ibrahim and his co-founder felt that the industry was under-served. They recognized the opportunity to take their passion into a big industry, “as we researched automotive, we just learned more about how big the industry actually is,” he says: “we wanted to make an impact.” Ibrahim Mesbah: It's a big challenge to take a lot of the disparate systems and data that make up the parts catalog, distributor pricing, and inventory at the dealer and distributor level and build that up to a compelling e-commerce experience. We couldn't solve all the challenges at once, but we started by solving one of them: how do we help you price competitively? It used to take about six months to get prices updated online. It's tough to run a competitive online business if you don't have up-to-date pricing. So we started solving smaller challenges like that first. Our business began to grow, and we realized we could do much more in the space. We learned a lot about the industry.  “We were software guys; now, we just love the industry.”  It's very fulfilling to see the impact that we can have, helping our dealers and OEM partners to easily sell online. However, there are a lot of challenges that we haven't solved, so even though it's been nine years, it feels like we're just getting started.  "Our platform powers over $625 million a year in OEM parts sales online."  It's a pretty narrow niche. But, when you look at how much OEM parts and accessories are sold online, we believe we can grow that piece of the pie and continue to drive more sales for our partners. Automotive has unique nuances, and relationships still go a long way in the industry. So the first few years, we just served one automaker. After that, it was a little bit easier to get access to data and start to help their dealers, so we could prove the model and expand nationally.  "We now power more sales than anybody else in the industry in the US for online retail OEM part sales."  The first few years of their business were spent focused on serving one automaker. It became easier to access data and start to help their dealers. RevolutionParts was able to prove their model and expand nationally.  Ibrahim Mesbah: There are new challenges with supply chain issues and COVID around finding inventory and setting better expectations. The model is changing quite a bit, too, because automakers are looking at how to reduce friction and provide a better experience to their end buyer, but, of course, there are franchise laws that come into play here. Trying to navigate all that, we feel fortunate that we have a seat at the table and could be part of that solution. We didn't realize how big the industry was and how many opportunities there were, right? "We try to ruthlessly prioritize the things we're going to work on." “There are many things we could work on and problems we could solve,” Ibrahim smiles. “I wish we could move faster. There is always an opportunity to make an even bigger impact.” Ibrahim Mesbah: Initially, we were very market driven. We were smaller, and we partnered with many early adopters in the industry willing to take a chance with a small company. As a result, we got to deeply understand our customer’s day-to-day and where we can add value.  Understanding what those customers largely drove the most impactful thing we could do. We bootstrapped our business for the first six or seven years with $10 million. We had to make every dollar stretch and manage our resources incredibly effectively. So privatization is important to us. We must be careful how and where we spend our time and resources.  There's no shortage of tasks because there are a lot of opportunities and ways to contribute and add value. We manage our resources and focus by considering our different teams and understanding the Northstar metric for each team. We want to enable and empower our engineering and product team. It's up to them to consider all the different opportunities we can think of to improve the shopping experience and conversions, for example, and take a couple of bets, as long as what drives the most impact and the customers' voices is part of the equation.  "Our dealers have a really good sense of what matters." RevolutionParts understand that dealers are fully in-tune with their operations. “We understand that and work to prioritize a roadmap where there's typically one big rock that that team is driving towards every quarter,” Ibrahim says.  The Future Ibrahim Mesbah: Our core business is helping franchise dealers sell parts online. The end customer we are targeting is the consumer, people who work on their own cars or do their own repairs. They can go online, find a genuine part, place an order, and get it delivered to a nearby dealership.  The change we are seeing is that many insurance companies and reconditioning centers are struggling to find inventory for OEM parts. What they're interested in is whether we can help them solve this problem. We have a network of about 2,000 dealership partners here in the U.S., and we can help find the inventory. We're doing a couple of pilots right now that we're pretty excited about: working with those larger wholesale buyers and giving them a way to easily tap into our network of dealers and locate inventory.  Our goals this year are to continue to strengthen our online retail footprint.  E-commerce is growing, and we believe we're in a bit of a recession or a slowdown this year. With interest rates rising, people will hold on to their cars for a little longer. This should bode well for our industry and our dealers. If people hold onto their cars longer, there will be more investment in maintaining them.  "So we're excited about being part of that and helping double down on our current core business and enabling our dealers to sell even more online."  Our future gross lever is taking this pilot we're working on right now, productizing it, and launching it this year. This solution enables bigger wholesale buyers to source parts from our network of dealers, OEM parts specifically.  The third focus area for the year, our three pillars, is removing friction from the experience. Our customers are short-staffed. How do we help with automation and integration so that day-to-day, our platform is even easier to use? Enabling them to do more with less.  Ibrahim’s humble approach is in stark contrast to what you may expect a CEO of a wildly successful business to be like. Measured and thoughtful, he and the team clearly approach problem-solving with the long-term game in mind. We look forward to what RevolutionParts has in store for the industry this year.