Gretchen Seidel is a world-class facilitator, mentor, and leader. In her 30 years in the automotive industry, she’s seen it all - and has imparted her wisdom to thousands of people.
Gretchen Seidel is an automotive professional with decades of experience in OEM, retail, and FinTech environments. Starting from her first job as a Title Clerk almost thirty years ago, she’s worked nearly every desk in the dealership – and uses that experience every day to cultivate productive relationships with top accounts, deliver a high-quality product with stellar satisfaction rates, and help dealerships see more tail lights over the curb.
With over three decades of dynamic experience fueling her journey in the automotive industry, she’s traversed the worlds of retail, both variable and fixed operations, OEM, TPA, and SaaS domains, with an unwavering passion for innovation and customer satisfaction.
Gretchen excels at building and maintaining key relationships that drive cross-functional alignment, resulting in long-term growth and value for partners and strategic accounts. She has a proven track record of delivering process optimization and data analysis, as well as facilitating leadership and team development.
Being certified in Maxwell Leadership, she values intentional living, adding value to others, and volunteering for community causes. As a Certified Financial Education Instructor, CFEI®, you'll mostly find her at Junior Achievement of South Florida, mentoring youth and working with them to elevate their financial literacy.
For a list of Gretchen’s professional accomplishments, connect with her on LinkedIn - or keep scrolling to see a quick summary of her most recent job experiences.
Sales Tech with TPA, Porfolio Co
In 2023, Gretchen brought her experience to Third Party Administrator Portfolio, as she discovered new technologies to develop their technical platforms & agent/customer experience strategies. With her expertise connecting the technical and business worlds, she worked across teams to ensure that new applications were covered operationally from conception to launch.
At Portfolio, Gretchen remediated non-operational UX that addressed unanswered customer inquiries, and implemented a streamlined workflow, enhancing responsiveness. Since implementation, it has resulted in a consistent monthly 175-250% increase in customer interest in the program. She also established comprehensive tracking mechanisms to monitor access to materials, enabling data-driven decision-making regarding support and service strategies. Gretchen consistently emphasized a customer-centric approach by leveraging insights to enhance agent experience and satisfaction.
Joining FinTech Startup AutoFi
Gretchen joined the AutoFi team in 2019 and managed the start-to-finish customer relationship with 100+ dealers, including onboarding with the solution, increasing usage rates, driving transactions, ensuring retention, and delivering a high-quality product with high customer satisfaction rates.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Gretchen’s region grew by 371%. She maintained just a 5% churn rate, even as dealerships tightened their belts and dropped vendors during the pandemic, showing Gretchen’s ability to deliver a high-quality product to customers no matter the circumstances.
When Gretchen was with AutoFi, her experience as a Finance Manager/Trainer & Facilitator was invaluable, as she regularly onboarded and interacted with top-tier automotive lenders and other partners. When she wasn't looking to improve loan app flow and conversion for AutoFi partners and strategic accounts, she was knee-deep in AutoFi data, analyzing and classifying trends to identify process optimization and rectify inaccuracies.
Facilitation and Training at JM&A Group
For five years, Gretchen worked at JM&A Group in a variety of roles, including Data Equity Mining Implementation Consultant and Training Manager. In her roles, she partnered with dealers to retail 3,000+ additional units for $4.2M in annual gross profit; facilitated classes to thousands of business managers on how to overcome objections and close the deal – and earned a 4.97 out of 5 rating based on hundreds of student surveys; tracked 102% YOY growth and exceeded revenue objectives of $4.3 million; and more.
While at JM&A, Gretchen was an F&I trainer for Hendrick Automotive Group on-campus at Hendrick University and was responsible for training incoming F&I producers in compliance and F&I product sales to the Hendrick Automotive Group’s high standards
Nearly A Decade With American Honda Motor Company
Gretchen worked for American Honda Motor Company from 2006 - 2014. She was responsible for the adoption and adherence of manufacturer programs across the zone (ACCP, CollisionSelect, AOLC, Service Smarts, ACPV, etc.) and created promotions that increased parts & accessory sales 125% consistently year-over-year. During her eight years with Honda, Gretchen administered the zone operating budget of $1.4M and decreased year-over-year operating expenses by 17%.
A Dozen Plus Years at the Dealership
Gretchen started her career in the car industry in 1993. Working as a waitress at the time, and needing health insurance, Gretchen answered an ad in the newspaper for a Title Clerk at a local Buick dealership.
In the years that followed, Gretchen worked both front and back of house. From accounting to sales and finance, and the fixed ops department, she has worked nearly every desk in the dealership.
She’s spun paperwork, written service tickets, worked the parts counter, greeted customers bright and early on a Saturday, booked countless BDC follow-up appointments, audited rebate and incentive statements, appraised cars and put together deals, planned community outreach events, presented menu options – and of course, sold cars.
Gretchen knows exactly what it’s like when you have a customer in your office, three more waiting for you back-to-back, and you’re still expected to perform a full-on menu. She has spent countless mornings on the service drive at 6:45 a.m., watching customers pile up all the way to the bottom. Not to mention, how it feels when your comptroller tapes the CIT to the door that’s taller than you are, and knowing you’ll get rewarded with a special lunch when that schedule doesn’t hit the ground anymore.