Veteran auto industry business leader, digital strategist, and innovator joins rapidly growing business intelligence and performance improvement company

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – October 11, 2012 – Kevin Root has been named President and Chief Operating Officer of DrivingSales, the company announced today. Root joins the rapidly growing business intelligence and performance improvement company to further build and execute on its mission of delivering unbiased, actionable insights to help automobile dealers increase their profitability.

Root, who has served on the DrivingSales Advisory board since 2009, is charged with both operational and strategic responsibilities for DrivingSales. During his career, Root has launched over a dozen successful first generation products and digital solutions, and was recognized by J.D. Power and Associates as “one of the ten original automotive eBusiness pioneers.”

“Kevin will be key to helping us move our vision forward. He brings one of the sharpest strategic minds in our industry, as well as critical expertise and hands-on experience turning strategies into business-building solutions,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder Jared Hamilton. “His background aligns perfectly with our insight- and information-driven mandate: his performance-improvement solutions for dealerships and OEMs have been foundational for our industry, and his industry research has broken new ground on everything from reputation management to the impact of social media on dealerships. We are excited to have Kevin join our team as we focus on bringing the next chapter to our dealer community and clients!”

DrivingSales, which is on track for its third consecutive year of triple-digit revenue growth, has attracted users from one out of every three franchised dealerships in the United States. The company has won multiple awards, including a ‘Stevie’ Award in the American Business Awards for Innovative Company of the Year for 2012.

“I have watched DrivingSales grow to become a key industry influencer over the past four years, doing what no one else in the industry has done: create a new platform to ensure dealers get the unbiased, relevant and unfiltered intelligence and insight they need to build their businesses,” said Root. “The passion and integrity its talented team brings to everything they do makes DrivingSales one of the best positioned companies in the industry.”

Root is an automotive industry veteran with over 25 years of automotive and technology experience. He joins DrivingSales from Dealer.com where he was Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Product Officer. Prior to joining Dealer.com, he served for 10 years in product strategy, retail performance improvement and marketing positions at Cobalt and DriverSide. Root is widely known for producing the ecommerce performance research that has become the auto industry benchmark, and has led large studies on the subjects of social media, reputation management and emerging consumer trends. Root’s extensive accomplishments include the creation of over a dozen technology products and services used by thousands of dealers and many of the leading manufacturers. Root has consulted with and developed digital marketing and retail performance improvement solutions for many automotive OEMs and enterprise dealer groups including Lexus, VW, Audi, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Kia, Subaru, and AutoNation.

About DrivingSales

Founded in 2008 and dedicated to the dealer community, DrivingSales is a business intelligence and performance improvement company that delivers unbiased*, profit-building information to make automobile dealers more successful through three distinct channels: DrivingSales Data, DrivingSales University and DrivingSales Media. DrivingSales Data houses the largest database of cross-vendor, dealership performance data in the North American auto industry and provides dealerships with the most statistically accurate performance benchmarks and metrics for their marketing and technology investments. DrivingSales University is a fully interactive online university that offers advanced profit-building strategies to automotive professionals through hundreds of classes taught by world-leading experts. DrivingSales Media connects dealers to peers and information through its global media assets, including DrivingSales.com, the world’s largest automotive social network; The Dealership Innovation Guide, an industry leading quarterly publication; DrivingSales Executive Summit, the top automotive conference for progressive dealers, and DrivingSalesTV, Web TV covering everything car-dealer related. Approximately one in every three dealerships in the United States has a registered member in the DrivingSales community.

*Vendor Neutral Policy: Dedicated solely to making dealerships more profitable, while also providing benefit to automakers and the industry as a whole, DrivingSales adheres to a strict vendor neutral policy through each of its channels. This means the company only provides unbiased information, not ‘pay-to-play’ follow up services -- and never accepts payment in exchange for media coverage or lets potential advertisers dictate messaging or create bias in any of its channels.

DrivingSales Media Relations:

Melanie Webber (melanie@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 424.603.4340

Angela Jacobson (angela@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 714.454.8776