30+ year Auto Finance executive having led sales, product and marketing departments at Wells Fargo Auto Finance, Black Book, and as the founding CMO at Global Lending Services.
For the 6 years before joining TurboPass, Lou led Equifax’s Automotive Vertical, and he has served on multiple industry and advisory boards including a term as the President of the National Auto Finance Association.
TurboPass Q&A
Why did you join TurboPass?
I’ve been working on the problem that TurboPass has solved for dealers, lenders and car buyers for almost 30 years. 16 of those years were while working as a lender at Wells Fargo Auto and Global Lending. More recently, I focused on these problems during my 6 years in the auto vertical at Equifax and while at The Work Number. TurboPass finally provides the solution modernizing the way this part of the car buying/financing process works and it’s very rewarding for me to be a part of it.
What’s the most important thing TurboPass accomplishes?
Simply put, we improve the ability for dealers and lenders to serve their customers, all while eliminating friction, fraud, and the scourge of dealer buybacks.
Tell us about trends you’re seeing in the verifications space?
Dealers have always been innovators. We’re proud to be leading the trend of verifications becoming more digital, leveraging an environment that consumers are comfortable with (their cellphone). TurboPass provides what is needed to understand consumers better and get their deal funded fast. In my 30 years of auto, we are the first company I know of to have signed up almost 12k dealers in just 4 years on any solution.
How did past roles prepare you for this position?
As a lender, I had responsibility for over 25k dealers. The issue of fraud, slow funding, and not being able to get customers approved because of VOI / VOE issues had always been a challenge. While at Equifax as a solutions provider to all the auto lenders in the country, I knew that if we built the solution right, the lenders would get behind us and encourage their dealers to sign up with us and to use us. Many lenders have championed us in this way, and we are so grateful for their hard work. It’s made the industry better!
What feedback do you get most from dealers?
The most rewarding thing about my role is the feedback we get from customers. One of my favorite pieces of feedback to receive is when dealers tell us that we made car deals HAPPEN when they wouldn’t have otherwise. I love being told that we sped up the funding process and made the customer experience a good one. From the lenders, I love hearing that paper with a TurboPass report significantly outperforms paper without it.
What excites you most about TurboPass’ future?
It’s been very exciting to make headway into other point of sale verticals. I’m always thrilled to be delivering new products to our platform every few months. What keeps me excited is seeing usage grow every day because it means we’re solving that many more pain points for our customers.
