Automotive Marketing Services Leader Adds Digital Marketing Firepower To Marketing and Products Teams With 6 ExecutivesAutomotive Marketing Services Leader Adds Digital Marketing Firepower To Marketing and Products Teams With 6 Executives
Redwood Shores, CA and Dallas, TX — October 2008 —Taylor Winfield, Inc., a leading U.S. executive search firm, announces recently closed searches for The Cobalt Group, the Seattle-based leader in automotive marketing and website services. For over thirteen years, Cobalt's exclusive mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profits. Cobalt provides marketing services to over fifty percent of the automotive dealerships in the United States, as well as automotive dealers in Canada and Mexico. An Oak Investment Partners and Warburg Pincus investment, Cobalt is endorsed by two-thirds of the world's major automotive manufacturers.
For the 2007-8 period, Taylor Winfield was brought in to partner with the Cobalt team in a major Management team development project. During the course of this executive search project, TW completed searches for Cobalt’s Dealix division and for the parent company, The Cobalt Group.
For The Cobalt Group, TW introduced Chris Reed, VP and Chief Marketing Officer. Chris brings over 25 years experience in marketing and strategy in solutions businesses ranging from start-ups to IBM. At Lotus Development he led the re-positioning and marketing campaigns that enabled Notes to spurt from $20M to over $250M in revenue in 3 years, initiatives characterized by bestselling author Geoffrey Moore as "one of the most extraordinary marketing achievements in years." In the past 10 years, Reed has served as Vice President or Chief Marketing Officer of three businesses that provided software and services to improve the operational performance of retailers and SMB service providers. Chris holds a BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and a MBA from Harvard University.
For Cobalt’s Product organization, TW introduced SVP Products & Development, Greg Meyer. Prior to joining Cobalt, Greg was SVP Products and Technology at Atlas Solutions (a division of aQuantive, acquired by Microsoft), leading development and operations of all technologies, including Atlas Media Console, Rich Media, Search and Site Optimization. His previous roles at aQuantive included Chief Information Officer and Vice President, Product Technology, and Director of International Information Technology. A seasoned and visionary technology executive, Greg was instrumental in creating Atlas Division's global technology infrastructure capable of supporting over eight billion daily transactions. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Eastern Washington University.
Additionally, TW introduced Paul Nagy as VP Core Product Services, holding responsibility for Cobalt’s entire core automotive dealer website business. Most recently, Mr. Nagy was VP Marketing with BlueRoads, the leading provider of Partner Opportunity Management (POM) solutions for medium-to-large enterprises. Previously, Nagy was the VP Product Management for Metreo, where he helped deliver price management solutions to Fortune 500 companies. Previous to that, Nagy held senior management positions at Selectica, including VP of Product Management. During his tenure at Selectica, Nagy was responsible for expanding the company's product offering from a single product for sales to over 10 platform products, helping the company quickly become one of the industry's leading interactive selling systems suite. While at Selectica, Nagy led product and marketing efforts as the company grew from an 18-person start-up to a publicly traded company with over 700 employees and over 85 customers.
For the Dealix division, the world's leading provider of quality automotive leads for dealerships, dealer groups and automotive manufacturers, TW introduced EVP & General Manager Anna Zornosa. Ms. Zornosa is responsible for the overall management and strategic direction of Dealix with a focus on accelerating growth through product enhancements and line extensions. Prior to Cobalt, Zornosa, a seasoned CEO and General Manager, served as Vice President & General Manager, Yahoo! Personals, responsible for overall management and strategic direction of Yahoo! Personals; Chief Marketing Officer of Knight-Ridder Digital, a unit of newspaper giant Knight-Ridder, Inc; and CEO of Topica, Inc. She also held senior positions at Women.com and PointCast, Inc. She received her BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin.
Subsequently, TW partnered with Zornosa to build her team, by introducing Egon Smola, as Vice President Portal Development. Mr. Smola was a leader with Yahoo! Personals, which ranked as the top internet dating site in the U.S.A. according to Comscore Mediametrix and Nielsen//NetRatings. He led international expansion and product management. Additionally, TW introduced Eric Dunstan, Director of Channel Marketing, formerly a leader of eBay’s Automotive division.
TW’s search teams were led by CEO Connie Adair; Silicon Valley Managing Director, Nadine North; and VPs Judy Redeker and Kirk Harrell. Stated North, “It’s always a pleasure to work with CEO John Holt and the exceptional team he’s assembled. It was an honor for Taylor Winfield to partner with the Cobalt team on these initiatives. The talented and experienced executives produced by these searches are critical team additions as The Cobalt Group takes the next step of rapid growth in their ultra competitive marketplace. In each search, we brought forward industry-acknowledged leaders with top tier company DNA including Yahoo!, eBay, and aQuantive/Microsoft.”
About The Cobalt Group
Cobalt is North America's leading provider of automotive marketing services. For thirteen years, Cobalt's mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profitability. Cobalt provides marketing services to nearly half of the automotive dealerships in the United States, as well as automotive dealers in Canada and Mexico. Cobalt's marketing services are endorsed by two-thirds of the world's major automotive manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.cobalt.com.
About Dealix
Dealix, a division of Cobalt, is the world's leading provider of quality automotive leads for dealerships, dealer groups and automotive manufacturers. Dealix has the broadest and highest quality lead supply network in the industry, including partnerships with Edmunds.com, MSN Autos, Kelley Blue Book, AOL Autos and Yahoo! Autos. Dealix's advanced quality control and routing technology matches thousands of serious new and used vehicle buyers to the most appropriate dealers daily, delivering a quality user experience while providing dealers one of the most efficient methods to sell more cars. For more information, please visit http://dealix.com/default.aspx.
About Taylor Winfield, Inc.
Established in 1987, Taylor Winfield has been instrumental in building billions $$ in market value within the high technology industry, via retained executive search and strategic business development. Through key relationships with premier private equity and venture capital firms, maturing client companies, and their executive network of visionary industry leaders, Taylor Winfield has conducted searches to create hundreds of high tech core management teams in Consumer Internet, Wireless, SaaS, Enterprise Software, Networking, Hardware, Services, and Semiconductors – and now Healthcare, Medical, Clean Tech, Renewable Energy and Retail.