Reynolds President Chris Walsh: ‘The story's not over yet'

Chris Walsh learned he would become president of Reynolds and Reynolds during his performance review. It was unexpected, to say the least.

"It came as quite a surprise. When my boss (CEO Tommy Barras) brought me in for my annual review and went through [it], the last page was 'Here's what I want [you] to do going forward,' " Walsh, 58, recalled.

The second-generation Reynolds employee became president of the retail automotive software giant Jan. 27, 2022. His mandate: To help the Dayton, Ohio, company continue efforts to simplify its dealership management system contracts and improve relationships with dealer customers who saw Reynolds as inflexible, particularly under the leadership of controversial longtime CEO Bob Brockman, Barras' predecessor.

Walsh, a 36-year veteran of the 157-year-old company, didn't hesitate to take on the challenge.

"It was the next step in our company's journey," Walsh told Automotive News. "The story's not over yet."

Walsh is working with other Reynolds executives to redouble efforts to attract new dealership customers, retain the old ones and keep an active eye on possible acquisition targets. That strategy is paramount in the face of fierce and tight competition among Reynolds, CDK Global and Cox Automotive, the industry's largest dealership software and DMS rivals. New and growing players such as Tekion also are emerging .

With Barras and Walsh at the helm, Reynolds continues to focus on revamping its image in the wake of Brockman's November 2020 departure. Brockman, who died at age 81 in August, left the company after being indicted in what the federal government has described as the largest tax evasion case ever brought against an individual in the U.S.

Since the management upheaval, Reynolds has brought more voices to its leadership table, in part through an executive committee launched as part of a best-practices initiative. Barras and Walsh work jointly to guide the company's adjusted direction.

Walsh brings experience in sales, marketing and customer service to the table. Barras, 63, comes from a product development background; he joined Brockman's Universal Computer Systems Inc. in 1976.

That dealership software company founded in Brockman's living room in 1970 became Brockman's vehicle to Reynolds. He took charge of Reynolds after UCS and Reynolds merged in 2006.

Barras, who became president and COO of Reynolds and then CEO in November 2020 after Brockman stepped down to face federal charges of tax evasion and wire fraud, declined to be interviewed. A company spokesman told Automotive News that Barras "prefers to share recognition." In an email, Barras called Walsh a key member of Reynolds' leadership team.

Walsh "is an integral and highly trusted part of my decision-making process. The excellent work he does on a daily basis on behalf of our customers is one of the most important aspects of who we are as a company," Barras said. "To understand him is to know what Reynolds is all about today, and what I want us to be as we continue to grow."

Walsh is focused "on the future of our industry, and he understands both the challenges and opportunities facing automotive retailing today," Barras added.

Early in his career at Reynolds, Walsh developed a reputation as a quick learner with clear ideas, said Phil Jessee, a 76-year-old company veteran who retired in 2016 as director of sales training.

Jessee, who was employed at Reynolds for 42 years, said he started working with Walsh when the company president was in his 20s. Jessee also worked alongside Walsh's late father, Brian, a Coast Guard Reserve veteran who was with Reynolds for 33 years until retiring as a regional sales director in 2001.

Jessee remembered Chris Walsh as someone who rapidly became a decisive leader as he learned the ropes, showing a strong capacity to both listen to and persuade peers.

"You saw somebody that really could take problem situations and resolve them to everybody's satisfaction, [and it] takes a real skill to be able to do that," Jessee said. "He also had the ability to look ahead and to see what he needed."

Walsh, wearing a starched, open-collar light blue dress shirt and navy suit coat, reflected on his role as he sat at a blue-and-gray Reynolds demonstration workstation on the floor of the NADA Show on Jan. 27.

Reynolds brought about 150 people to the show and took up the space of six standard booths on the convention floor. Underscoring the competitive stakes, archrival CDK's equally large booth bustled in the background.

Both customers and employees are often on his mind, Walsh said.

"I worry about the people that work here. … Am I doing the right thing by them? I worry about [whether] they feel like they understand how they contribute to the success of the company," Walsh said. "I worry about what our customers think and [whether we] are doing the right thing for our customers."

Reynolds, which went private in 2006 after the deal with Brockman's UCS, does not disclose financial or detailed customer data.

Under Brockman's leadership, the company developed a reputation as an inflexible and challenging business partner and had begun to lose market share, according to 2017 court filings in a federal antitrust lawsuit against CDK and Reynolds.

After Brockman stepped down, the company in 2021 began efforts to improve its reputation and revamp its approach, with initiatives such as offering more flexibility to dealerships and trimming its contracts.

Walsh, a married father of three children, said he's "most proud" of the progress the company has made in keeping existing customers while acquiring new ones.

Brett Sutherlin, CEO of Sutherlin Automotive, a dealership group based in Buford, Ga., said his company has worked with Reynolds for more than 20 years. While he hasn't interacted with Walsh, Reynolds has displayed a new approach since work began on renegotiating the company's DMS contract this year, Sutherlin said.

"They have been incredibly flexible compared to the Brockman days and have shown a willingness to … be more dealer-centric and have some give-and-take," Sutherlin told Automotive News.

Sutherlin said he had become frustrated, even reaching out to CDK to begin conversations about switching DMS providers. Then, Reynolds stepped up in a major way.

"They actually flew my team up to Ohio and gave us the red-carpet treatment and started the conversation by letting us know that this is a different Reynolds and Reynolds," Sutherlin said. "We're still in the negotiating phase right now, but I doubt we will leave based on everything that I have seen from their senior management in this process."

Another dealership executive who knows Walsh said his leadership style is a good change for customers.

Robert Taylor, chief information officer for Hendrick Automotive Group, a longtime Reynolds client, said he has worked with Walsh for years and described him as a "calm, jovial individual" with a quiet presence — qualities that help him to be a good leader.

"He comes off as a thinker and a little reserved, but in the role that he's in, I think that's a good thing," Taylor said. "He's genuine. He's really interested in understanding what we're trying to do and how we're trying to do it, as opposed to someone that may want to tell you how they do it."

Walsh said he is a good listener and tries to use that to address customer needs and to seek innovations in both products and processes. Many people have helped fuel innovation at Reynolds, he said, including Brockman, who pushed the company to prioritize inventive products in ways that previous leadership and ownership had not.

"Our products were not as good as he made them, and we were not a very innovative company" before the merger, Walsh said. Brockman "drove a lot of that into our organization, which we're benefiting from now. And we're trying to take that legacy of innovation and continue forward with it in our own way as we go to market."