In the automotive industry, Grace stands out as a trailblazing female leader. She has been an integral part of the Cox family of businesses since she joined Autotrader in 2007, steadily rising through numerous leadership roles within Cox Media Group, Cox Enterprises and Manheim.
As president of Inventory Solutions at Cox Automotive, Grace is now at the forefront of transforming Manheim’s used-vehicle marketplace into a seamless blend of digital and physical platforms. Under her leadership, ambitious projects — such as a $100 million investment in Central Dispatch and the expansion of Vehicle Services — are coming to fruition. Grace’s vision is not just about logistics and sales; it’s about modernizing tools and enabling her team to provide a consistently exceptional client experience. Grace shares her insights and priorities for the year ahead, revealing the passion and strategic thinking that drive her and her team.
Q. WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE MOST IMPORTANT PRIORITIES FOR THE INVENTORY SOLUTIONS BUSINESS?
We’re focused on many different things this year, but four of our top priorities include:
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Expanding our One Manheim Marketplace: It doesn’t matter where the car starts or ends — in our auction lanes, on our digital channels or at a dealer location — as long as it sells through Manheim.
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Transforming the logistics space: In 2024, we started a four-year, $100 million investment in Central Dispatch to transform it into a true transactional marketplace that connects those needing to ship vehicles with those able to ship them. Now is the time for us and our clients to benefit from that investment.
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Bringing our full Vehicle Services capabilities to market: We’ve long been building these services, including inspections, recall and warranty work, storage and marshalling, and a whole host of EV battery services like charging, diagnostics, replacement, shipping, refurbishing, recycling and more. Now, we’re hitting the gas pedal in this part of our business.
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Refreshing our connected client experience: This is all about modernizing tools and better equipping our people to support our clients in the best way possible as a unified team.
(Above) Grace and team members visit the Manheim auction in Dallas-Fort Worth. (Right) Grace and her family enjoyed a visit to Bryce Canyon National Park.
Q. AS YOU LOOK AT THE MANY FORCES AT PLAY IN TODAY’S MARKET, HOW DO COX AUTOMOTIVE AND INVENTORY SOLUTIONS SUCCEED IN THE LONG TERM?
Cox Automotive continues to be more and more connected by leveraging our wholesale assets (our Manheim locations) to prepare a used car for retail sale, and our retail capabilities that the Retail Solutions team has been building (like Retail360), combined with the largest consumer marketplace in Autotrader. We’re finding new ways for our retail and inventory teams to work together and leverage each other’s capabilities in this space for the benefit of all of Cox Automotive.
Q. WHAT’S THE ROLE OF AI IN REMARKETING?
AI is integrated into so much of what we do. A couple of great examples include Manheim’s AI-powered fixedimaging tunnels and AI damage detection technology. The imaging tunnels capture thousands of pictures of the vehicles that come through our auctions and then select the 12 best to use in the vehicle’s condition report.
The damage detection technology leverages the entire image set to identify and describe various conditions on the vehicles. In the logistics space, we’ve built a whole new suite of intelligence tools that help fuel millions of vehicle moves each year. We’re bundling the data to enable new, predictive insights for shippers and carriers.
Q. HOW DO YOU ENCOURAGE RESILIENCE IN YOUR TEAM?
Being part of Manheim means you’re part of a family that takes care of its clients and each other. Our teams have overcome so many difficult periods — economic recessions, a variety of severe weather events and, of course, a global pandemic where Manheim was the only automotive remarketer that stayed open to help keep clients’ businesses solvent. Resilience is simply part of our DNA.
Q. WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO WHEN YOU’RE NOT WORKING?
We love to travel and have traveled all over the world. Hiking and enjoying the outdoors is also a favorite pastime, including visiting one of our national parks whenever we can. But where I find myself spending most of my free time these days is at the softball field cheering on my middle schooler or “encouraging” my high schooler to start getting ready for his college applications this fall!