Dealer-Controlled, Cloud-Stored
Bruce Bendell is Chief Executive Officer of a New York City-based, multi-brand group of franchise dealers, including the largest dealers in the New York Metropolitan area. Mr. Bendell has more than four decades of automotive retailing experience. He has also invested in and managed a variety of early stage businesses. He is the current Chairman of the New York State Automobile Dealer Association. Mr. Bendell received a BA from Queens College.
Michael Lewison has worked in corporate finance, operations and business development for more than 20 years. His most recent experience includes multiple projects in construction and development, the retail automotive sector, and international finance. His family owns and operates one of the largest privately owned franchised retail automotive operations in Central California with Mr. Lewison serving those operations in a number of roles including finance and development. Mr. Lewison also directed operations and sales for Transfer Technologies, a premier IBM Corporation business partner and subcontractor. In that capacity, he managed projects with IBM within Fortune 500 companies in a wide range of industry sectors. He has served several startups in roles ranging from CTO to corporate director.
Michael Kane is a 35+ year veteran of the auto rental, leasing, sales and remarketing business. Mr. Kane founded VRCG, Inc. in Royal Oak, MI. in 2000; VRCG is a national vehicle remarketing firm that has direct-to-auto dealer- sales in the $100MM range. Kane successfully exited the company in Spring 2017 and immediately associated with OnlineKars as both an investor and operator. For 20 years prior to establishing VRCG, he was an executive with Enterprise Rent A Car, with operations spanning Michigan and Ohio with 10,000+ rental units, 3000 lease units, three retail used car lots, wholesale car sale operations and approximately 750 employees.
James Auffenberg, Jr. has more than 35 years of automotive retailing experience. Currently, he serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Auffenberg Dealers, a group of 14 franchise automobile dealers based in and around St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Auffenberg is actively involved in the National Automobile Dealers Association, including serving on the Board of the Directors. He has also invested in and managed a variety of early stage businesses. Mr. Auffenberg received a BS from the University of Santa Clara and a MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.
Anthony Assalone, Board Member, for the past 17 years has been the managing member of United Galaxy Associates LLC. This entity specializes in auto dealership mergers and acquisitions, valuations and consulting services. Previously, he owned and managed auto dealerships in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. He represented such manufacturers as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, Buick, Lincoln Mercury, Mazda, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, Porsche, Audi and Chrysler. He has served as chairman of the Mazda National Dealer Council and the Mercedes-Benz Tri-State Advertising Group.
Stephen W. Wade, Board Member, serves as the President of Stephen Wade Auto Center, St. George, Utah. Mr. Wade was the Chairman of NADA for 2011 and has also served as NADA's region IV Vice Chairman and on the Policy and Bylaws, ATAE/NADA, Finance and Government Relations committees. He also served as president of the Utah Automobile Dealers Association (UADA) in 1981. He has owned more than 20 franchises throughout Utah and has served on numerous automotive factory committees, boards and associations. Active in his community, he has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Dixie State College and is a founder of Sun Trust Bank of St. George.
Jeffrey Troncone, Board Member, has devoted substantial time to development of OnlineKars’ retail auction concept, and to organizing the company and developing its business plan. From 2010-2012, Mr. Troncone was a co-founder of Intercastnetwork.com, a video platform using banner ads which include live streaming product presentations, such as an infomercial where users can expand the presentation, purchase the product and share with networked friends. In 2009 and 2010, he was a consultant for Enterra Solutions, where he contributed to developing a Cognitive Reasoning Platform which receives extraordinary volumes of data from any source, understands the nature of the data, learns from the relationships and connections it discovers, and makes decisions and takes actions to achieve defined outcomes. From 2004-2008, he was the president of Visionary Vehicles, which established the first North American Chinese vehicle import business.
A retail automotive leader in strategic marketing and sales, Peter has worked with BMW, Mini, Mercedes Benz and Acura to launch four brand new franchises is six years, and relocated one. He has held leadership positions that span logistics, rent a car, hospitality and technology.
