25 Essential Thought Leaders in Auto Retail (2026)

Last updated: June 2026

The auto dealership and vehicle retail industry has more active, outspoken, and genuinely useful thought leaders shaping it right now than at any point in its history. As of June 2026, the 25 leaders in this directory represent the most credible, active, and practically valuable voices in the conversation about how franchised dealerships operate, innovate, and lead. If you sell cars, run a store, or make decisions about dealership performance and culture, these are the people whose thinking deserves your attention.

The global automotive retail market was valued at $714 billion in 2025, and that number understates the complexity of the moment. A 2026 Reynolds and Reynolds study of more than 500 dealership employees found that 57 percent of dealership staff now use artificial intelligence in some part of their job, with 70 percent of executives and dealer principals leading that charge. Cox Automotive research found that dealers using AI and automation in 2025 were nearly twice as efficient and nearly twice as profitable as peers who had not adopted these tools. And yet CDK Global's monthly buyer surveys of more than 14,000 car buyers found that the overall ease of purchase score fell from 88 percent in 2024 to 84 percent in 2025, meaning the technology wave has not automatically translated into a better customer experience. Someone has to bridge that gap.

As of June 2026, the thought leaders, consultants, dealer principals, and media creators in this directory are actively doing that bridging work through published research, daily podcast commentary, dealer training programmes, and the operational example of stores they run. I put together this directory to surface the people genuinely shaping the automotive retail conversation rather than recycling the same handful of names that appear on every list. Each person was selected based on a documented, fact-checked contribution to this field, from active LinkedIn publishing and podcast creation to operational track records and published books.

Jonno White, Certified Working Genius Facilitator and author of Step Up or Step Out (10,000+ copies sold), works with leadership teams across sectors to build the communication, accountability, and team clarity that underpins high-performing organisations. If your dealership's leadership team needs a facilitation session or executive team workshop, book Jonno through jonno@consultclarity.org. International travel is often far more affordable than clients expect, and many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs less than engaging high-profile local providers.

Why Automotive Retail Leadership Matters in 2026

Automotive retail is one of the most demanding leadership environments in any industry. High turnover, margin pressure, complex multi-department operations, an increasingly digital-first customer base, and a technology landscape shifting faster than most dealerships can absorb, all of it lands on the shoulders of dealership leaders who are frequently promoted for being great salespeople rather than great leaders.

Cox Automotive's research is worth sitting with: 71 percent of car buyers in 2025 said they preferred a path to purchase that blends digital and in-person steps, while 21 percent said their ideal experience was entirely online. The dealership's front door is no longer the physical showroom. It is a response time, a message quality, a follow-up cadence, and an information experience consistent across every touchpoint from search engine to service department. When those elements break, conversion breaks. When they work, the showroom visit becomes a formality rather than the whole game.

The leaders in this directory are the ones articulating what excellence looks like in that environment. They are dealer principals who have rebuilt cultures from the ground up, consultants who have challenged outdated processes, media creators who have given the industry a shared vocabulary, and data experts who have reframed what it means to understand a market. Organisations can hire Jonno White to facilitate the leadership conversations that help dealership teams work together through this kind of change. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

How This List Was Compiled

Each leader was selected based on a documented, fact-checked contribution to automotive dealership and vehicle retail, from active LinkedIn publishing and podcast output to operational results, published books, and recognised credentials in the field. Current role and organisation name were verified against primary sources dated within the last 12 months. Every entry reflects a person actively engaged in this field today, not a reputation built on work from a decade ago.

Category 1: Industry Media and Voices

The automotive retail conversation has never been richer or more accessible than it is today, and that is largely the work of this group. These are the people who have built the platforms, podcasts, and media properties the industry reads, listens to, and debates every morning.

1. Paul J Daly

More Than Cars

Paul Daly co-founded ASOTU, the Automotive State of the Union, in 2020 with the founding conviction that when dealers band together, no crisis can win. As co-creator and co-host of the daily Automotive State of the Union podcast and co-creator of the Amazon Prime Video docuseries The Truth About Car Dealers, Daly has built one of the most influential media and community platforms in automotive retail. His annual ASOTU CON event drew more than 800 industry professionals in 2026, up from 600 the previous year.

Daly's specific contribution is his framing of automotive retail as a people-first, community-driven industry rather than a purely transactional one. His podcast connects daily news across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging technology, and culture, giving dealer principals and general managers a daily reference point for what is shaping the industry. His 2025 merger of his creative agency into the More Than Cars brand extended that reach into direct content strategy and production work for automotive organisations. Organisations can hire Jonno White alongside these media leaders to facilitate the leadership conversations that bring team alignment to the ideas this community surfaces. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

2. Yossi Levi

CDG Companies

Yossi Levi is the Founder and CEO of CDG Companies, the organisation behind Car Dealership Guy, the automotive retail industry's leading independent media platform. Levi built his platform from an anonymous social media account into a network that now reaches more than 55,000 dealers and industry operators, generating over 20 million monthly impressions as of 2026. He was recognised by EY as an Entrepreneur of the Year and by Goldman Sachs as one of its Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs.

His specific contribution is the transparency and data-driven rigour he has brought to automotive retail media. Before CDG, Levi founded and scaled Gettacar, a fully online auto retailer that reached $80 million in annual sales, giving his editorial voice an operational credibility that pure journalism cannot replicate. The CDG podcast and Daily Dealer Live format have become the most widely followed independent sources in automotive retail, with 98.5 percent of the top 150 US dealer groups engaging with CDG content as of 2026.

3. Kyle Mountsier

More Than Cars

Kyle Mountsier is Partner and COO of More Than Cars, which he co-leads alongside Paul Daly at ASOTU. He joined the vision in 2021 with a focus on community and culture, drawing on his background in retail automotive operations and his conviction that a focused community can genuinely shift the culture and perception of the retail automotive industry.

Mountsier's specific contribution is his sustained emphasis on the human dimension of automotive retail at a moment when the industry is navigating both significant technology adoption and a workforce culture reckoning. His daily podcast commentary, his presence at ASOTU CON, and his work building the More Than Cars creative agency have made him one of the most consistent voices on what it means to lead people well inside a dealership or automotive technology company. He brings an operational sensibility to commentary that is often heavy on trends and light on execution.

4. Michael Cirillo

FlexDealer

Michael Cirillo is CEO of FlexDealer and Chief of Staff at ASOTU, and the host of The Dealer Playbook, the top-rated automotive retail podcast that is now in its 12th year. He started the podcast in 2014 after observing that many dealers were feeling stuck in the old way of doing things amidst rapid change and evolving consumer demands. He is also the author of Don't Wait, Dominate, a book on goal-oriented strategy for automotive professionals.

Cirillo's specific contribution is more than a decade of consistent, practically-grounded conversation with the dealers, operators, and leaders who are actually building something in this industry. His podcast is known for going beyond surface-level trend commentary to explore what high-performing dealership leaders actually do differently in their day-to-day operations. His dual role at both FlexDealer, where he works directly with dealerships on marketing strategy, and ASOTU, where he contributes to the industry's broader community platform, gives him a perspective that bridges implementation and inspiration in a way few automotive voices manage consistently.

5. Jim Fitzpatrick

CBT Automotive Network

Jim Fitzpatrick co-founded CBT Automotive Network in late 2012, and it has since become the leading news, information, and training source for franchised new car dealers throughout North America. He and his partner Bridget received the Lighthouse Award from the Automotive Website Awards in 2019, recognising their investment in bettering the automotive industry through their media platform.

Fitzpatrick's specific contribution is the breadth, consistency, and accessibility of the CBT platform, which produces daily newscasts, weekly shows hosted by respected trainers and consultants, and events including the Auto Leadership Summit Fair Pricing and Compliance, held in Washington DC in June 2026. His role as on-screen host and interviewer has given him access to virtually every significant voice in the industry. CBT operates as a daily presence across LinkedIn, YouTube, and broadcast formats, giving dealership professionals a reliable source of structured industry intelligence.

Category 2: Dealer Principals

These are the dealership operators who have not only built exceptional businesses but have chosen to share how they did it, giving the industry a practical template for what high-performing dealership leadership actually looks like in practice.

6. Liza Borches

Carter Myers Automotive

Liza Borches is the President and CEO of Carter Myers Automotive, a fourth-generation dealership group representing 17 franchises across six markets in Virginia. She was the first woman to lead CMA, growing the organisation from three dealerships to sixteen through a people-focused approach that includes employee ownership, values-based hiring, and deliberate community involvement. Automotive News named her to its Top 100 Women in Automotive, and she received the Barbara Cox Woman of the Year Award from Cox Automotive.

Borches's specific contribution to the public conversation is her detailed, candid articulation of what a people-first dealership group actually looks like in operation. Her appearances on ASOTU, CBT News, and the CDG podcast have given dealers a close look at how culture-led leadership translates into dealership performance and retention. Her December 2025 ASOTU podcast episode on people, culture, and leadership at CMA was described as one of the most insightful dealer-perspective episodes of the year.

7. Brian Benstock

Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura

Brian Benstock is Vice President and General Manager of Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura, which holds the distinction of being the number one certified Honda and Acura dealership in the world. He has been featured by CNN Money, FOX Business, Bloomberg Technology, CBS News, and Automotive News for his thinking on leadership, customer experience, and dealership innovation, and he keynoted the 2025 CAMS Industry Summit at Northwood University.

Benstock's specific contribution is his public articulation of what digital-first dealership operations look like when executed at the highest volume in the industry. His commentary on lead management, customer experience integration, and the relationship between technology adoption and leadership culture has made him one of the most-cited dealer principals in industry conversations. He combines the credibility of running one of the busiest stores in North America with a willingness to share the specific operational thinking behind it.

8. Rob Cochran

#1 Cochran

Rob Cochran is the CEO of #1 Cochran, a leading dealer group in southwestern Pennsylvania, and the 2026 Chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. In the chair role, Cochran has been the most prominent public voice on the case for the franchised dealer model as the most efficient path to market, engaging with regulatory challenges, customer experience transformation, and AI adoption across NADA's membership of 16,500 franchised dealers.

His specific contribution in 2026 is providing the industry with an unusually candid and strategically grounded voice at a moment of significant regulatory pressure and market uncertainty. His live NADA podcast episode, recorded at the 2026 NADA Show in Las Vegas, laid out his strategic priorities for the year with a directness uncommon in association leadership communications. His operational background running a large multi-brand dealer group in a competitive market gives his advocacy a practical grounding that purely association-facing leaders cannot always match.

9. Jeff Swickard

Swickard Auto Group

Jeff Swickard is the Dealer Principal of Swickard Auto Group, which has grown to 40 dealerships across multiple western US states. His approach to building a large dealer group draws heavily on hospitality principles, the conviction that the disciplines that make a great hotel experience can also build a great car-buying experience. His 2025 CDG podcast appearance broke down the hidden hospitality formula behind Swickard's growth, including the specific cultural and operational standards required to scale that experience across a geographically distributed group.

Swickard's contribution to the industry conversation is this hospitality framing, which offers a useful alternative model at a time when customer satisfaction scores are declining even as technology investment rises. His operational model prioritises the quality of the human interaction at the dealership as a competitive advantage, rather than treating the showroom experience as a friction point to be automated away. His willingness to share the specific components of that culture in public forums has made his approach one of the most discussed alternatives to traditional dealership management thinking.

10. Rita Case

Rick Case Automotive Group

Rita Case is the Owner and CEO of Rick Case Automotive Group, a multi-brand dealer group spanning 12 dealerships in South Florida. She has been recognised as one of the Top 100 Women in Automotive by Automotive News and is one of the most prominent female dealer principals in the United States.

Case's specific contribution is her long-running demonstration that large-scale dealer group ownership and leadership is achievable for women in an industry where female dealer principals remain significantly underrepresented. Her willingness to engage with industry media and share the perspective of a long-tenured, owner-operated dealer group has made her a visible counterpoint to the still-male-dominated operator class. Her public commentary on dealership culture, family business dynamics, and what it means to sustain a dealer group's values through ownership transitions has added a dimension to the industry conversation that operator-focused content often lacks.

Category 3: Culture, Training and Consulting

These are the advisors, coaches, educators, and culture architects who are helping dealerships build the leadership infrastructure, process discipline, and organisational clarity that technology alone cannot create.

11. Jan Griffiths

Gravitas Detroit

Jan Griffiths is the President and Founder of Gravitas Detroit and the host of the Automotive Leaders Podcast, which has published more than 200 conversations with industry leaders. She is the author of AutoCulture 2.0, which challenges the command-and-control leadership model that has dominated the automotive industry for decades. Born in Wales with more than 35 years of experience in automotive, she launched Gravitas Detroit in 2018 and has since built one of the most sustained bodies of public work on culture change in the automotive sector.

Her specific contribution is the evidence-based case she has made for authentic leadership as a genuine competitive advantage in automotive retail and manufacturing. Her podcast explores culture, trust, and leading through technology transformation with industry leaders across the sector. Her January 2026 solo episode on what leadership must become as the industry enters its next phase of AI-driven change framed the challenge not as a technology adoption problem but as a leadership identity problem, arguing that the dealerships and suppliers that will win are those whose leaders combine humility, systems thinking, and genuine care for people.

12. Glenn Lundy

800% Club

Glenn Lundy is the founder of the 800% Club and the host of the Rise and Grind Morning Show. As a former general manager of a Chevrolet dealership in Paris, Kentucky, Lundy achieved 800 percent growth over six years and has since translated that operational track record into a training and coaching platform working with dealerships across the United States on accountable, high-performing cultures. His published work includes The Legacy Titles: 12 Proven Principles to Scale Your Business 800 Percent.

His specific contribution is the combination of a verifiable operational track record with a structured, teachable methodology for how dealership leaders build cultures of accountability and performance. His 8-5-3 formula, which provides sales managers with a daily framework for ensuring every team member has the lead-to-appointment-to-show structure required to hit monthly targets, has been adopted across hundreds of stores. His active conference speaking in 2025 and 2026, including as a DriveCentric DC20 keynote, has kept him at the centre of the industry conversation on performance culture.

13. Brooke C Furniss

BZ Consultants Group

Brooke Furniss is the President and Founder of BZ Consultants Group and the host of the Facts Not Feelings podcast. Her consulting practice focuses on protecting dealerships, holding vendors accountable, and helping dealers achieve measurable results from technology and marketing investments. She started her automotive career in 2009, built expertise across OEM operations, consulting, and dealership management, and founded BZ Consultants to bridge the gap between what vendor dashboards show and what is actually happening in a store's performance data.

Her specific contribution is her willingness to call out what she describes as vendor noise and manufactured complexity, and her insistence on data hygiene, transparent reporting, and accountable vendor relationships as the foundation of effective dealership marketing. Her June 2026 appearance at the CBT News Auto Leadership Summit in Washington DC addressed fair pricing, compliance, and the operational leadership skills required to maintain dealer reputation in a tightening regulatory environment. Her LinkedIn commentary on AI search optimisation hype in automotive retail has been among the most widely-shared critical perspectives of 2026.

14. Dave Anderson

LearnToLead

Dave Anderson is the President of LearnToLead and the author of Elevate Your Excellence and several other published works on dealership leadership and management discipline. For more than three decades, he has worked with dealership leaders to sharpen execution, clarify priorities, and build the daily accountability disciplines that separate stores performing at their ceiling from those leaving consistent performance on the table.

His specific contribution in 2026 is his articulation of what focus-based leadership looks like in a year of market uncertainty. His December 2025 CBT News appearance argued that dealership managers fail not from lack of effort but from spreading attention across too many initiatives without clarity on what truly matters. Anderson's approach, which centres on a small number of high-impact goals supported by daily measurable actions rather than comprehensive strategic plans, has made him one of the most consistently cited leadership voices in automotive training through multiple market cycles.

15. Stan Sher

Dealer eTraining

Stan Sher is the Founder of Dealer eTraining, a consulting and training practice specialising in automotive sales, BDC operations, internet sales, leadership development, customer experience, and dealership process improvement. With more than two decades of retail automotive experience, Dealer eTraining works with dealerships nationally to improve communication, accountability, operational performance, and customer engagement.

A June 2026 Digital Dealer article attributed to Sher laid out a clear framework for what the next generation of dealerships needs to build to thrive in a tightening market, arguing that the stores finishing 2026 strongest are those investing in training, coaching, and leadership development rather than relying on technology alone to carry their performance. The article made the case that AI should strengthen human capital rather than replace it, and that dealerships attempting to use technology to eliminate the human element will miss the core competitive advantage that distinguishes the best stores from the rest.

16. Max Zanan

IDDS Group

Max Zanan is the Founder and CEO of IDDS Group and Total Dealer Compliance, and the author of four books on automotive retail operations, including Perfect Dealership: Surviving the Digital Disruption, Car Business 101: What Crazy Things Car Dealers Do, and The Art and Science of Running a Car Dealership, co-authored with Ted Ings. With nearly 20 years of experience across automotive sales, F&I, and dealership consulting, Zanan started his career as a dealership salesperson and rose to become General Manager of a New York Mitsubishi store that placed first in national sales.

His specific contribution is the body of accessible, practitioner-level writing and consulting he has produced on the gap between how dealerships currently operate and how they need to operate to survive disruptors including Carvana, direct-to-consumer OEM models, and digital-native competitors. His argument, made across four books and active LinkedIn publishing, is that franchise protection has historically insulated dealers from the market discipline that drives improvement, and that the operators who treat their franchise as if those protections do not exist are the ones best positioned to thrive in the decade ahead.

17. Damon Lester

NAMAD

Damon Lester is the Chairman of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers and the Dealer Principal of Nissan of Bowie in Maryland. During more than two decades of leadership at NAMAD, Lester helped approximately 300 minority entrepreneurs become owners of dealerships, cemented partnerships with 100 percent of domestic and international auto manufacturers, and positioned NAMAD as a strategic voice on diversity, dealer advocacy, and workforce inclusion across the entire automotive sector.

His specific contribution is his sustained, relationship-based advocacy for minority representation in an industry where the numbers remain well behind the population benchmarks. NAMAD estimates that only five to six percent of American dealerships are minority-owned, despite minority consumers purchasing more than 30 percent of all new vehicles. His January 2026 appearance on the ASOTU podcast explored burnout, mental health, and authentic leadership in automotive retail, reflecting the full breadth of his contribution to industry thinking, which extends well beyond diversity advocacy into the human dimensions of sustainable dealership leadership.

Category 4: Market Intelligence and Strategy

These are the people who have built careers around turning automotive market data into language and frameworks that dealerships can actually use.

18. Jonathan Smoke

Cox Automotive

Jonathan Smoke is Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Cox Automotive, a role he assumed in November 2025 after serving as the company's Chief Economist since 2017. His views on the economy and the auto market are regularly featured in Automotive News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg, and CNBC, and he speaks at major industry conferences including NADA, NIADA, and the Automotive News World Congress.

His specific contribution is the weekly and quarterly economic analysis he has produced through Cox Automotive's Smoke on Cars series, which translates macroeconomic data into practical guidance for dealer principals navigating inventory management, pricing strategy, and affordability pressures. His 2025 and 2026 commentary on what he describes as the bifurcated consumer, where high-income households benefit from rate cuts while lower-income buyers face continued strain, has shaped how dealerships think about product mix, financing offerings, and the segment dynamics that determine whether a given quarter is strong or soft.

19. Alan Haig

Haig Partners

Alan Haig is the Founder and President of Haig Partners, the leading buy-sell advisory firm for franchised dealership transactions in the United States, and the publisher of The Haig Report, the longest-running quarterly analysis of dealership valuations and M&A trends in automotive retail, which he has published consistently since January 2014. His commentary appears regularly in Automotive News and he hosts the Haig Partners Maximizing Value Conference for dealer principals and automotive investors.

His specific contribution is the market intelligence on franchise valuations, deal structures, and the strategic forces reshaping dealership ownership that he has made available through consistent public publishing. His 2026 conference presentation included a data-driven framework for evaluating which franchises are best positioned for investment across the current market environment, accounting for OEM relationships, brand momentum, and the operational efficiency of the dealer network. His active LinkedIn presence and CDG podcast appearances bring that institutional research perspective to dealer audiences who would not otherwise access buy-sell advisory content.

20. David Thomas

CDK Global

David Thomas is Director of Content Marketing and Automotive Industry Analyst at CDK Global. He has spent nearly 20 years in the automotive world as a product evaluator, journalist, and marketer, and now produces the market research and industry analysis that CDK uses to connect its technology platform insights with the broader dealership community.

His specific contribution is CDK Global's Ease of Purchase Scorecard, the monthly survey of more than 14,000 car buyers that has become one of the most cited benchmarks for dealership customer experience in the industry. His Q1 2026 analysis, which documented a meaningful improvement in salesperson performance metrics despite a market defined by slower sales and adverse weather, gave dealerships an evidence-based counter-narrative at a moment of general industry pessimism. His ability to extract practical operational guidance from large-scale buyer survey data has made his research among the most referenced in the automotive retail trade media.

21. Steve Greenfield

Automotive Ventures

Steve Greenfield is the Founder and General Partner of Automotive Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on automotive technology and mobility. He has more than 25 years of experience in the automotive technology space, has held senior strategy roles at TrueCar and AutoTrader.com, and has overseen more than $1 billion in automotive technology acquisitions. He is the author of The Future of Automotive Retail and publishes the weekly Intel Report for automotive industry subscribers.

His specific contribution is his investor-level perspective on which automotive technologies are genuinely solving dealer problems and which are generating hype without operational substance. His NADA 2026 session on AI disruption and AI advantage for dealerships was among the most technically grounded analyses at the show, addressing how the technology decisions made at the dealership level in 2026 will define competitive positioning for the rest of the decade. His active LinkedIn publishing on used vehicle supply dynamics, inventory strategy, and market signals reflects a practitioner who has remained closely connected to dealership operational reality despite operating primarily in the investment space.

22. Brian Pasch

Pasch Group

Brian Pasch is the Founder and CEO of the Pasch Group and the author of nine books on automotive marketing strategy. He is one of the most widely published voices in automotive marketing education, has spoken at virtually every major automotive retail conference, and hosts Auto Marketing Now on CBT Automotive Network, where he has delivered a consistent long-running series on digital marketing best practices.

His specific contribution is the Automotive Standards Council, a cross-industry working group he helped convene to establish shared specifications for how dealerships measure and attribute digital marketing performance, with more than 75 automotive companies participating. That body of standards work represents a concrete contribution to operational clarity in an area that was generating significant waste and confusion across dealership marketing departments. His nine published books represent one of the most substantial bodies of practitioner-facing automotive marketing literature available anywhere in the industry.

23. Jade Terreberry

Cox Automotive

Jade Terreberry is Senior Director of Strategic Planning at Cox Automotive, responsible for the Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book consumer brands. She grew up in her father's dealership, answering phones at age eight, and has built a career at the intersection of dealership operations and the data-driven consumer platforms that shape how buyers find vehicles. She hosts the For the Road Forward podcast and was a featured speaker at the Digital Dealer Conference and Expo 2025.

Her specific contribution is her ability to translate Cox Automotive's first-party data, drawn from billions of consumer interactions annually, into practical guidance for dealers on how to connect with buyers at the right moment in an increasingly complex purchase journey. Her 2025 analysis of the omnichannel preference data, including the finding that 71 percent of buyers prefer a path that blends digital and physical steps while 21 percent prefer an entirely online experience, has become one of the most cited figures in dealership digital retailing discussions. Her combination of dealership-floor authenticity and enterprise data expertise is unusual and valuable.

24. Brian Kramer

Cars Commerce

Brian Kramer is Executive Vice President of Dealer Growth and Success at Cars Commerce, the parent company of Autotrader, Cars.com, and associated platforms. He brings nearly 30 years of automotive industry experience, including time as a dealership General Manager, to his role helping dealer clients extract value from the Cars Commerce data and marketplace platform.

His specific contribution is his consistent public articulation of what effective digital-to-physical conversion looks like from the dealer side of the equation. His December 2025 CDG podcast appearance broke down how 2025 was ending for dealers and what the data suggested about Q1 2026, drawing on first-party insight from thousands of dealer clients. His dealership background gives him a credibility in dealer conversations that pure technology executives rarely achieve, and his regular ASOTU and CBT News appearances have made him one of the most accessible practitioner voices on how digital retailing tools perform in real dealership operations.

25. Ian Plummer

Auto Trader UK

Ian Plummer is Commercial Director at Auto Trader UK, the dominant automotive marketplace in the United Kingdom, and one of the most prominent voices on European automotive retail dynamics in 2025 and 2026. He has spoken at Automotive Management Live, the UK's largest automotive retail conference, and at international events including the Shanghai Auto Show. His June 2025 podcast appearance addressed EV adoption trends in the UK, the competitive impact of Chinese manufacturers entering the European market, and what diversity in the automotive industry actually requires beyond public statements.

Plummer's specific contribution to the international automotive retail conversation is his grounded, data-rich commentary on a European market undergoing an EV transition that is moving faster than the North American equivalent. His Auto Trader UK market data, which tracked more than 89 million site visits in a single month in 2024 and has documented the first month in which electric vehicles became the most inquired-about fuel type on the platform (April 2026), provides the industry with one of the most detailed windows into where vehicle retail is heading globally. His LinkedIn publishing on EV affordability, digital retailing, and market dynamics is among the most data-grounded content in the European automotive space.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

The automotive retail thought leadership space is broader than any 25-person list can capture. Several voices came close to this directory and deserve acknowledgement.

Ernie Garcia Jr, the Co-Founder and CEO of Carvana, has reshaped what is possible in vehicle retail through digital-first operations, and his CDG podcast appearance on Carvana's strategy for pushing toward three million annual sales was one of the most-cited automotive interviews of 2026. His impact on the industry is undeniable, though Carvana's direct-to-consumer model places Garcia in a different category from the franchised dealership voices this directory centres.

Patrick Manzi, Chief Economist at NADA, produces some of the most rigorous publicly available macroeconomic analysis specific to franchised automotive retail, and his quarterly Dealer Driven podcast episodes are essential listening for anyone trying to understand what economic conditions mean for specific dealership segments. Perry Watson IV, President of NAMAD, has taken on the full operational leadership of an organisation doing critical work on minority representation in automotive retail, and his public profile is building quickly.

Marianne Johnson, EVP and Chief Product Officer at Cox Automotive, has been one of the most clear-eyed voices on what AI adoption at the dealership level actually means in practice, and her public writing in late 2025 remains one of the most grounded assessments of how the technology is reshaping every role in the dealership. Darryl Kenningham, CEO of Group 1 Automotive, has given the buy-side perspective on dealership operations at scale through his appearances with both Haig Partners and the CDG platform.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Automotive Retail Leadership

The leaders in this directory share a set of hard-won perspectives on what goes wrong when dealership leadership does not keep pace with the market. Several patterns come up consistently.

The first is confusing technology adoption with operational improvement. The 2026 Reynolds and Reynolds research found that 57 percent of dealership staff are now using AI tools in their work, but CDK Global's buyer data found customer satisfaction falling in the same period. Technology adoption at the level of a tool or a software subscription does not automatically translate into a better experience for customers or a more effective environment for the team. Jan Griffiths, Glenn Lundy, and Dave Anderson all make this point from different angles: technology gives you capability, leadership determines whether that capability is used well. Organisations can engage Jonno White to help dealership leadership teams build the communication and accountability structures that make technology investments pay off. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

The second is building a list of goals rather than a set of disciplines. Dave Anderson's core argument is that dealership managers who spread their attention across ten equally prioritised initiatives deliver on none of them. High-performing stores identify the three to five things that matter most to their quarter and execute on those with daily measurement and accountability. The stores winning in 2026, as Steve Greenfield noted in his market commentary, are not the ones chasing the most technology. They are the ones executing with inventory discipline, lead response speed, and consistency of process.

The third is treating digital retailing as a feature rather than a mindset. Jade Terreberry and Brian Kramer have both articulated versions of this: the 71 percent of buyers who prefer an omnichannel path are not asking for a specific tool or a digital handshake with a docusign. They are asking for information consistency, process transparency, and the ability to pick up where they left off. Dealerships that install digital retail software without rethinking the lead management, the financing conversation, and the handoff from digital inquiry to showroom appointment will find their investment underperforming.

The fourth is neglecting fixed operations in pursuit of new-vehicle gross. Alan Haig and Jonathan Smoke have both noted in 2026 commentary that new-vehicle margins are under meaningful pressure while fixed operations revenue is one of the most controllable profit centres available to dealership leaders. Stores that have invested in service retention, technician development, and service department throughput are finding that fixed ops is carrying their financial performance at a moment when front-end grosses are compressing. The leaders on this list who focus specifically on fixed operations have been among the most practically useful voices in the dealer conversation this year.

The fifth is underestimating the culture and leadership dimension of workforce performance. The leadership community that Paul Daly, Kyle Mountsier, Jan Griffiths, Brooke Furniss, and Michael Cirillo have built is explicit about this: the dealership industry has a talent retention and development problem that no CRM, no AI tool, and no new-vehicle incentive programme will solve. The stores that are winning on culture are the ones where people can see a path, where management coaches rather than just directs, and where accountability is experienced as development rather than punishment. Book Jonno White to facilitate that conversation with your leadership team. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Implementation Guide

Reading the voices on this list is useful. Applying their frameworks is the real work.

Start with the media layer. Subscribe to CDG News, the ASOTU daily email, and CBT News as baseline inputs for your leadership team. The best dealership leaders in 2026 are running on better information than their competitors. Paul Daly, Yossi Levi, Kyle Mountsier, Jim Fitzpatrick, and Michael Cirillo between them produce a daily and weekly feed of curated, practically-oriented industry intelligence that replaces hours of unfocused research.

Then identify your biggest operational gap and find the specific voice that addresses it. If your BDC performance is the constraint, Stan Sher and Max Zanan have built bodies of work specifically on internet sales, process, and accountability in the sales department. If your leadership culture is the constraint, Jan Griffiths, Glenn Lundy, and Dave Anderson have each articulated structured approaches to building the leadership behaviours that produce performance. If your digital marketing measurement is unclear, Brian Pasch has produced more practically-grounded work on that specific problem than any other voice in the industry.

Then take the buy-sell and market intelligence layer seriously, even if you are not currently buying or selling. Alan Haig's quarterly Haig Report and Jonathan Smoke's weekly Smoke on Cars analysis tell you what the market is doing to your franchise value, your consumer's affordability, and your inventory economics before the outcome shows up in your monthly financial statements. The dealers navigating 2026 most successfully are the ones who saw the affordability pressure and inventory supply dynamics coming, not the ones reacting to them after they arrived.

Finally, find the voices outside your immediate operating context. Ian Plummer's European perspective on EV adoption and the impact of Chinese manufacturers on vehicle retail pricing gives North American dealer principals a window into where their market is heading before it arrives. The best leadership teams in any industry are the ones who read at the edges of their field, not just the centre of it.

Book Jonno White to work with your leadership team on the communication, accountability, and team clarity that turns external insight into internal performance. Whether virtual or face to face, Jonno works globally and many organisations find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. Email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential thought leaders in auto dealerships globally?

The most active and widely-followed voices shaping automotive dealership thinking globally in 2026 include Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier of More Than Cars/ASOTU, Yossi Levi of Car Dealership Guy, Jim Fitzpatrick of CBT Automotive Network, Michael Cirillo of The Dealer Playbook, and Jan Griffiths of Gravitas Detroit. These voices collectively reach hundreds of thousands of dealership professionals through daily podcasts, newsletters, media, and events. Dealer principals including Liza Borches, Brian Benstock, and Jeff Swickard have also built significant public platforms around their operational experience.

What is the most important leadership skill for automotive dealership managers in 2026?

The voices in this directory consistently point to focus and clarity rather than a specific technical skill. Dave Anderson's argument that managers fail from spreading attention too thin rather than from lack of effort is echoed across the dealer training community. The practical answer is the ability to identify the two or three highest-impact disciplines in your store's current performance, measure them daily, and hold the team accountable to them consistently. AI adoption is important in 2026, but the 2026 Reynolds and Reynolds data shows that leadership commitment to adoption, not the tool itself, is what separates the 70 percent of dealer principals using AI from the 30 percent who are not.

How is AI affecting automotive retail in 2026?

AI is moving from experimental adoption to operational integration in 2026 dealer operations, with Reynolds and Reynolds research finding 57 percent of dealership staff using AI tools in some capacity. The most commonly adopted uses include lead response automation, inventory pricing support, service scheduling, and content generation for vehicle listings. The critical insight from the thought leaders monitoring this transition, including Steve Greenfield and the ASOTU commentary team, is that AI advantage in dealerships comes from integrating these tools into existing high-quality processes, not from using AI as a substitute for the processes themselves. The stores with slow follow-up and inconsistent processes are not meaningfully helped by adding AI to them.

What are the biggest challenges facing auto dealership leaders in 2026?

The combination of affordability pressure, margin compression on new vehicles, EV transition uncertainty, and workforce retention is making 2026 a year that rewards operational discipline rather than market conditions. Cox Automotive's dealer sentiment research found that the current market index fell to 38 in Q4 2025, well below the 50 line that signals positive conditions, and customer traffic sentiment hit its lowest recorded level. The leaders most consistently cited as successfully navigating this environment are those who have invested in fixed operations profitability, tightened inventory management to reduce aged units, and maintained the culture and communication disciplines that keep high performers in the building.

Where can I find these automotive retail thought leaders?

All 25 of the leaders in this directory are active on LinkedIn. The CDG Companies platform (dealershipguy.com), the ASOTU daily email and podcast (asotu.com), CBT Automotive Network (cbtnews.com), The Dealer Playbook (thedealerplaybook.com), and the Automotive Leaders Podcast (theautomotiveleaderspodcast.com) are the most consistent access points for the thinking in this directory. The major annual events where many of these voices gather include ASOTU CON, the NADA Show, Digital Dealer Conference and Expo, and Women in Automotive.

Final Thoughts

The automotive retail industry is navigating one of its most complex transitions: a technology adoption wave that has not yet produced the customer experience improvements it promised, a market defined by affordability pressure and margin compression, a workforce retention challenge that no app can solve, and an EV transition that is moving at different speeds in different markets. The 25 people in this directory are the ones actively working through what that transition means for the people who run and work in dealerships every day.

This is not a list of the most famous people in automotive. It is a list of the people most actively shaping how the industry thinks and operates right now, through daily publishing, sustained practice, and the kind of operational experience that produces frameworks worth borrowing rather than advice worth ignoring.

If your team is navigating any of these transitions and needs structured support to build leadership clarity, team alignment, or the culture that makes performance sustainable, engage Jonno White. His Working Genius workshops and executive team facilitation have helped organisations across industries build the shared language and accountability structures that turn good people into effective teams. Email jonno@consultclarity.org. Many organisations find that international travel is far more affordable than expected, and virtual delivery is equally available.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 240+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders and achieved a 93.75% satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected. To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Sources

Cox Automotive. 2025 Drivers of Car Shopping Satisfaction Study.

Reynolds and Reynolds. State of AI in Automotive Retail Q1 2026.

CDK Global. Ease of Purchase Scorecard, 2025 and Q1 2026.

Fortune Business Insights. Automotive Retail Market Size and Forecast 2025.

Cox Automotive. Q4 2025 Dealer Sentiment Index.

Next Read

The automotive retail conversation connects directly with the question of what retail leadership looks like across sectors. For the broader US retail perspective and the AU/NZ retail leadership landscape, visit consultclarity.org. The leadership fundamentals that determine whether a dealership becomes a leadership factory or a burnout factory are explored in depth at the link below.

Keep reading: https://www.consultclarity.org/post/leadership-factories-vs-burnout-factories-complete-guide