The Lancer Group Recruits CEO for Affinitiv
August 14, 2020 – La Jolla, CA-headquartered search firm The Lancer Group has recruited Sid Nair as the new CEO of CIP Capital-backed Affinitiv, a provider of data-driven marketing and software solutions to the automotive market.
“We have continued to make significant investments in technology, data and analytics, with a focus on strengthening the value and insights we can offer to our OEM and dealer partners,” said Justin Lipton, managing partner of CIP Capital. “Across his past experiences, Sid has consistently reshaped the business to create a winning culture with teams that believe in a growth vision, thrive together, beat competition, delight customers and deliver profitable growth. We believe that Sid brings a strong operational playbook that, paired with our differentiated product set and commitment to innovation, will drive tremendous long-term growth,” he said.
As part of a planned transition process, Steve Anderson, chairman and AutoLoop founder, will continue to be involved with the company in a chairman role. “Sid has a proven track record of driving transformative growth at large-scale technology companies,” he said. “He’s singularly focused on growth and has accomplished that at every company he’s worked with in the past. Sid is an extremely positive, high energy, engaging and motivating leader. He has a customer-first mentality and is a strong champion for all internal team members as well. I’m very pleased that we have someone of Sid’s caliber to serve as our new CEO and look forward to seeing his immediate impact on the business.”
Mr. Nair brings 25-plus years of experience running large-scale technology companies, with a strong executive leadership background that spans general management, sales and marketing, revenue growth, and transformation. He joins Affinitiv from Rackspace where he was the executive vice president and general manager of the Americas region, running a $2 billion P&L with 1,500 associates across sales, delivery, operations, marketing, product and solutions. At Rackspace, he delivered the best three sales quarters in Rackspace history following several quarters of decline. Prior to Rackspace, Mr. Nair was executive vice president, chief sales and marketing officer for Cox Automotive, where he led a 3,000 member sales and marketing team across Cox Automotive’s 25 brands. He has held executive leadership roles at DXC Technology (merger of HPE Enterprise Services and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)), Dell Services and Wipro Technologies.
“Affinitiv enjoys an impressive customer roster, a strong and differentiated product offering, a consultative, partnership-oriented mentality, and an amazing group of highly talented and motivated individuals,” said Mr. Nair. “The automotive aftermarket continues to be critical to the health and prosperity of both OEMs and dealerships and we believe we are uniquely positioned to help them improve the customer experience, increase loyalty and optimize service and parts performance. Affinitiv represents a highly unique opportunity to leverage the differentiated assets we have today to drive immediate value for our customers and introduce new innovative offerings.”
Based in Chicago, Affinitiv is a provider of data-driven marketing and software solutions serving automotive manufacturers (OEMs), dealer groups, and individual dealerships. Backed by more than 20 years of automotive and marketing expertise, Affinitiv supports over 6,500 dealerships and every major OEM in the country.
Serving Private Equity and Portfolio Companies
The Lancer Group, established in 1998, serves private equity firms, their portfolio companies and public corporations in their talent acquisition needs. The firm specializes in board-driven search mandates including CEOs, CFOs, C-suite executives and board directors as well as private equity investment professionals and operating partners. With that background, the firm has provided strategic counsel to clients across a range of industries and has particular expertise in technology, industrial, energy, healthcare and consumer markets.
With relationships at over 50 of the top 100 private equity firms, The Lancer Group provides a range of pre-deal private equity advisory services beyond traditional executive search. These include deal origination, diligence support and introductions to “backable” executives. The firm, which is privately held, operates from offices in Boston, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Sydney, Australia.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
