Jerry Daniels founded ABN in 2007 and continues to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of the company. In this capacity, Daniels has been driving innovation in the digital marketing space by providing automotive dealership signage tools to capitalize on direct marketing to customers throughout the showroom, service areas, and waiting rooms of the dealership.
Leveraging more than 30 years of retail automotive industry experience, Daniels drives ABN’s development of pioneering solutions featuring compelling content and exceptional technology at the forefront of the digital signage industry. ABN’s digital engagement platform empowers dealers and OEM’s to tell their brand stories, drive transactions, enhance customer loyalty, and impact their bottom line.
Daniels has directed ABN from a concept based on emerging technology to a national enterprise with dealership clients in all 50 states, proprietary intellectual property including a U.S. patent and recognition as a GrowFL Company to Watch in 2016 and Fast50 designation by the Jacksonville Business Journal in 2018.
Prior to founding ABN, Daniels served as Executive Vice President of Asbury Automotive Group, a Fortune 500 company ranked as the seventh-largest dealership group in the U.S. by Automotive news in 2017. In this role, he provided and cultivated leadership for 25 dealerships with stewardship of nearly 3,000 employees and annual company revenues reaching $2 billion.
He assumed that post after founding and serving as CEO of Auto Town, a software company providing Customer Relationship Management (CRM), inventory tracking and finance & insurance (F&I) software to automotive dealerships in 13 states.
Daniels began his career as an automotive salesperson in San Jose, CA, the heart of Silicon Valley. Rooted in the technology that was developing all around him, Daniels’ intellectual, data-driven approach to sales and leadership enabled him to quickly rise through the dealership ranks before ultimately becoming a dealer principal at age 30 after graduating from NADA’s Dealer Candidate Academy in 1990.
A recognized innovator and thought leader in both the automotive and retail digital signage industries, Daniels has been featured in multiple business and industry publications and is currently working on his first book.
Doug Porter comes to the Automotive Broadcasting Network (ABN) after having served on the ABN board for the last 10 years. Doug joined Automotive Broadcasting Network as the Chief Operating Officer. In his last position, Porter served as Senior Vice President of Operations and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), a national federation of 36 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies. The Blue System is the nation’s largest health insurer covering over 106 million people – one in three of all Americans. It is the largest single processor of Medicare claims in the nation and holds the world’s largest privately underwritten health insurance contract – the 6 million-member Federal Employee Program.
Doug’s previous responsibilities include leadership of all facets of Plan to Plan operations, BlueCard domestic and international programs, information technology, Enterprise Project Office, Business Continuity and Security, and analytics within BCBSA. These functions enabled system-wide interoperability and the Association’s National Programs, FEP benefit processing, and PlanConnexion services. Porter collaborated across the Blue system, the healthcare industry at large, and government agencies on matters relating to health plan operations, cybersecurity, technology and analytic solutions. He is a recognized thought leader in the practical application of technology in solving complex business needs.
Doug has served in various capacities advancing business growth, the high-tech sector, and state level economic development through his work with corporate boards, public/private sector collaboration, advisory role for two venture funds, and university advisory councils.
Doug has held both technical and business positions in his career including service in the banking, finance, travel, insurance, healthcare and computing industries.
He holds a master’s of science degree in international business from Johns Hopkins University, a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from Jacksonville University, has completed executive professional development work at Harvard, Northwestern and is currently pursuing a Wharton fellowship.
Linda Marlette has served as Chief Financial Officer of ABN since joining the company in 2010. In her tenure, Linda has established fiscal policy and exercised the financial prudence and strategic management necessary to help guide the company through explosive growth as it ascended from an upstart to an enterprise with dealership clients in all 50 states.
Marlette’s career in automotive retail spans more than 30 years. Prior to joining ABN, Linda served as a Division Controller for one of the largest dealership groups in the nation, Asbury Automotive. She earned this role after serving in multiple financial leadership positions including internal auditor and treasurer with the Coggin Automotive Group before ultimately being named corporate accounting manager. In this role, she was instrumental in guiding the Coggin Automotive Group through its acquisition by Asbury.
Linda earned her undergraduate degree from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri double majoring in business and mathematics. After graduation, she attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study accounting. After several years of developing her expertise and business acumen, she satisfied the rigorous criteria necessary to earn the highly regarded Certified Management Accountant designation affirming her expertise in financial accounting and strategic management.
Jim Bunnell joined Automotive Broadcasting Network as Chief Commercial Officer in 2019 bringing 39 years of automotive experience on the OEM side. Starting at General Motors as a financial analyst in 1979, Jim quickly rose through the ranks fulfilling multi-faceted assignments before being named Manager of Incentives and Go to Market Initiatives for Pontiac. After successfully fulfilling this role, he was promoted to Director of Passenger Car Planning for GM North America before returning to Pontiac as Brand Manager for the Grand AM.
Following rotational assignments in GM’s North Central Region based in Chicago, Jim was promoted to Regional General Manager in the Northeast Region with responsibility for sales, market share, customer satisfaction, service/parts and dealer relations spanning 9 states and 1,500 dealerships. After this, Jim was named Divisional Marketing Manager of the Pontiac-GMC Division. He returned to the North Central Region as General Manager in 2005 with stewardship of 2,000 dealers across 10 states.
Jim returned to Detroit in 2007 and was named General Manager of the Pontiac-Buick-GMC Division where he was responsible for all aspects of operations including operating profit. Annual sales exceeded 800,000 vehicles during his tenure. In 2008, Jim was named Executive Director of Sales Operations for the U.S. with expansive responsibilities including industry forecasting, vehicle scheduling, incentive development and dealer relations/recognition programs. In the spring of 2009, he was named Executive Director of the U.S. Dealer Network where he actively engaged with the U.S. Automotive Task Force during the restructuring and transformation of GM in 2009 and 2010.
Following this assignment, Jim relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, where he was named VP of Sales for Chevrolet and Cadillac Europe with responsibility for sales and related activities across 30 countries and 1,700 dealerships. He returned to the U.S. in 2014 and was named VP of Sales for Cadillac in the U.S. until early 2016. Shortly thereafter, Jim relocated to Singapore where he took on transformational assignments across several countries in SE Asia. He was subsequently named VP Sales Operations for GM International Operations until his retirement in July of 2018.
Jim holds a BS degree in Business/Accounting from the State University of New York, and an MBA from Indiana University.
Steve Mortensen co-founded ABN alongside President and CEO Jerry Daniels in 2007. His vision for the company has always been to build a world class technology and digital media company where team members want to come to work because of their respect for one another and every client.
Steve has utilized his natural gift for building relationships to steer ABN to exponential growth. On ABN’s Honda DreamsTV team he serves as the dealers’ advocate ensuring the voices of the hundreds of Honda dealers he has met with throughout the country are heard and considered in the perpetual development of the initiative. Outside of this role he also oversees enterprise-wide strategic sourcing, establishing policies, processes and procedures related to procurement and purchasing while defining best practices for resource optimization. Additionally, he manages renewal strategies for existing clients.
His experience in the automotive industry began over 30 years ago when he rose from salesman to part owner of two franchises within a small automotive group. When that group was purchased by a larger one, Steve became involved in mergers and acquisitions specializing in business formation and market growth development of several niche-based corporations for nearly a decade.
In 1996, he acquired a financial company and became president and chairman of Global Axcess Corp until it was sold in 2001. He stayed on with Global Axcess as an officer and board member, guiding the company as it grew from obscurity to ultimately becoming the fifth largest of its type by revenue in the United States.
Immediately prior to co-founding ABN, Steve invested in, and joined, a start-up company in 2004. While there, he landed an international distribution partnership and was responsible for over 80% of all corporate revenue generated during his three-year tenure.
Steve often shares with team members that he is just as excited to come to work today as he was the day he and Jerry started the company more than a decade ago and his contagious excitement is felt by every team member he contacts on a daily basis.
