40 Under 40

Cole Kutschinski surrounds himself with technology. Devices in his home even send reports about the household's Roomba vaccums.

"It may say something like, 'Oh, your vacuum is stuck,' " Kutschinski told Automotive News. "So yeah, I definitely have a smart home."

He uses technology daily, not just at home, but as senior vice president of strategic innovation for his family's Foundation Automotive Corp. in Houston.

Kutschinski spent his early teen years sweeping floors and washing cars at his family's Chevrolet dealership in British Columbia. He worked in sales, marketing and finance in his family's and other dealerships before joining Foundation in November 2018.

His job now encompasses marketing, communications and business development and he helps create and oversee multiple startups within Foundation, now with dealerships across four states and Canada. The startups harness technology, especially artificial intelligence, to add innovation or help solve a dealership problem, especially those brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kutschinski and his team, for instance, created BuyYourCar in summer 2021, a buying website that uses AI to acquire vehicles. It helped solve used-car inventory shortages by tripling the company's vehicle acquisitions from independent sources.
"The premise of it was: What if we could buy vehicles without spending a dollar in marketing?" Kutschinski said.

Foundation, which temporarily took down the site, plans to relaunch the technology as a software as a service product, offering it as a subscription for dealers to buy, he said.

Kutschinski also orchestrated an overhaul of the group's digital presence in 2020. By focusing on digital marketing and retailing, more leads were sparked. Six months in, overall lead volume rose 15 percent, leading to a 20 percent increase in sales revenue.

And when employee shortages affected sales leads, Kutschinski found and acquired an AI company, Konect.ai, in 2022. The move lowered costs, increased the group's lead-conversion rate and has added $1 million in sales revenue per quarter, Kutschinski said.

He said he's excited to see what other improvements AI can bring to automotive retailing and at home — though AI can only help so much with one of his non-work goals: "I'm in pursuit to learn how to cook the perfect steak," he said.

— Julie Walker