With twenty-two years of experience in the automotive industry, Foster Strategies Group’s founder and CEO, Laurie Foster, has worked at a host of automotive firms and businesses, gaining knowledge and experience at every turn. With an eye for organization and the ins-and-outs of employee operations and interactions, Foster has learned what works for the industry – and what doesn’t.
Curious about her prior experience? Take a look below, or network with her on LinkedIn.
Nationwide training+ workshops
In her work at cars.com, Laurie Foster provided thought leadership training and workshops to more than 150 audiences per year across the country. She always remembered there were 2 customers- the internal colleagues who were driving these important sessions and their hard-working, leaning-in dealer clients.
With attendees running the gamut from employees at regional meetings to dealer groups to nationwide OEMs, she stepped away from a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Instead, actively and intentionally adapted her strategies and tailored every workshop to meet the distinct needs of each audience to ensure that every attendee had the opportunity to learn in an enjoyable and engaging manner and instantly take action needed.
Grateful from the start
Following 12 years of growth under the rooftops of retail, Foster had the great fortune to work with hundreds of cars.com’s employees at a time when the company was emerging and dominating in the automotive dot-com market and has the highest respect for those who work diligently to create a better, easier path for their dealer clients to succeed.
Driving change management- Developing Leaders
Working for the largest automotive company in the country provided Foster with the opportunity to interact with over 300 dealerships, their leaders and the corporate team, giving the enormous amount of insight as to how she could coach strategy and how change was best implemented with every manufacturer in markets large and remote into all aspects of the automotive industry.
While there are universal truths, she fine-tuned her ability to quickly assess local markets and influences and adapt strategy to maximize their efforts with people, customers, sales strategies, while navigating change management and introducing process implementation and leadership coaching.
In listening to team members and observing each facet of AutoNation’s business, from leadership to product launches, she was able to appreciate the layers and intricacies of the company’s operations and, through this understanding, helped shape AutoNation’s change management initiatives.