AutoNation Inc. is the Hummer of automobile dealerships. Simply put, it’s the largest dealership in the country, and Chairman and CEO Michael Jackson’s take-no-prisoners attitude suggests he’s ready to run over his competitors like a Hummer over, well, anything else on the road.
Jackson was brought in as CEO in 1999 by founder H. Wayne Huizenga to retool AutoNation’s hodgepodge of companies.
“Everybody who didn’t do it our way, we threw out of the company,” Jackson says. “We hired people who did want to do it our way. Was it a battle? Absolutely. Is it over? Absolutely. The idea that you’re going to run this business with 350 entrepreneurs all going in different directions is crazy. You’re not going to add any value that way.”
Jackson, who began his automotive career as a maechanic, arrived from Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, where he was president and CEO. At Mercedes he led a renaissance in the luxury vehicle brand’s sales and marketing efforts. He saw a similar opportunity for growth at AutoNation.
“I thought something could be done in automotive retail that had never been done before,” he says. “AutoNation was the company that could do that. It (also) gave me the opportunity to work directly with one of the great entrepreneurs of the 20th century.”
It wasn’t long before Huizenga took Jackson under his wing.
“Wayne is an unbelievable entrepreneur,” Jackson says. “We developed a relationship where he was a great mentor. Working with someone from whom I could learn so much was an opportunity I couldn’t let go by. Wayne hasn’t disappointed me.”
Huizenga may have created the company in 1996, but it is Jackson who has built it into one of the largest and most well-run organizations in the nation.
Under Jackson’s direction, AutoNation has become America’s largest automotive retailer, employing 28,000 people at more than 280 dealership locations representing more than 360 new vehicle franchises across 18 states. The company boasts more than $19 billion in annual revenue and ranked No. 97 on the 2004 Fortune 500 list, outselling all other automotive retailers in the United States.
The company is also the Web’s largest automotive retailer of both new and used vehicles, generating $3 billion of revenue in 2003 via the Internet. For his efforts, a group of Jackson’s peers last year at the Automotive Hall of Fame voted him “Industry Leader Of the Year.”
