Stella Automotive AI, a Tampa, Fla., auto retail know-how startup funded partly by dealership teams Maroone USA and Pohanka Automotive Group, has employed auto business advisor Rich Sands as its new CEO.
His hiring, efficient May 26 and introduced Monday, comes after the corporate in early May introduced it had closed a seed spherical of financing.
Beyond Geoffrey Pohanka, the 2023 chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association and chairman of his namesake group, and Mike Maroone, CEO of Maroone USA, funding spherical members included Czubay Family Enterprises and Presidio Group, a Denver and Atlanta funding banking and advisory agency targeted on auto retail and shopper mobility.
Ken Czubay, a companion with Phil Smith Auto Group, instructed Automotive News that Czubay Family Enterprises is his household’s “small investment vehicle.”
Stella Automotive didn’t instantly share how a lot was raised within the spherical.
Sands, 49, most lately was an automotive gross sales, digital advertising and marketing and knowledge intelligence advisor as founding father of True North Enterprises. Before that, he was government director of automotive for J.D. Power and was an info know-how supervisor at Ford Motor Co., in accordance with his LinkedIn profile. He additionally labored for Microsoft Corp.
Sands has been and stays a strategic adviser to Presidio.
Stella Automotive founder Josselyn Boudett, the corporate’s former CEO, mentioned in an announcement that Sands’ data of the auto business and his experience in huge knowledge will assist lead the corporate via a “hyper growth period.” Boudett is staying on as firm chair.
Telepathy Labs, a Florida developer of interactive voice and chatbot know-how for business and enterprise, launched Stella Automotive as a separate enterprise in 2022, with a deal with conversational synthetic intelligence know-how for auto retail. The know-how is focused to dealership operations, buyer satisfaction and operational effectivity. Stella Automotive has the unique license to the Telepathy Labs conversational AI know-how.
Source: www.autonews.com