Cox Auto Leaders Make Top Women in Auto Industry List

Cox Automotive’s Janet Barnard and Grace Huang were recently recognized on the 100 Leading Women list from Automotive News.  

Every five years Automotive News, a leading industry publication, puts together a list of the 100 women leading the North American automotive industry — and this year Cox Automotive has two executives on this prestigious list.  

“Twenty years ago it was hard to find enough executives with authority; this year, the challenge was choosing among hundreds of powerful female executives,” according to the publisher.  

Barnard, executive vice president and chief people officer at Cox Automotive, has been in the automotive industry for nine years and says her style is big on results. “It’s always guided me,” she said. “As we dug into some of the social unrest issues that have gone on recently, our company has done a lot of soul-searching and we’re starting to do some real roll-up-your-sleeves work around what it means to be an inclusive leader. And I think that’s the angle of my leadership that I’m most focused on now.”

Read Janets's full interview.

Huang, president of Manheim, said it was serendipity that led her to Cox and the auto industry. “The reason I ended up on the Autotrader project was because it was in an area that I worked a lot in; it was about growth strategy in China. And I had just worked in China for a year as a transfer from Atlanta. And so it was an Atlanta-based client that needed growth strategy in China,” she told Automotive News. “And when I got to Cox and I got to Autotrader I just fell in love with the company, fell in love with the whole industry.” 

Read Grace’s full interview.  

Congratulations Janet and Grace!