Editor’s note: This is a reported column, in which Steve Finlay periodically explores the relationship between automakers and dealers for WardsAuto.
David Kain says that in 2000 he became the “first employee” of FordDirect, a bold joint venture between Ford and its dealers.
His mission was to launch the initiative that the Ford National Dealer Council came up with and then lobbied for. Ironically, the creation of FordDirect helped avert a potential showdown between Ford and its dealers as the internet became an auto-retailing force with growing capabilities.
FordDirect provides digital marketing, advertising and technology services to nearly all U.S. Ford and Lincoln dealers. It packages several website tools, such as customer-relationship and inventory management systems, and it provides dealers with data-driven customer profiles based on past buying behavior.
Kain recalls back then reading an article in which Bob Rewey, a Ford top executive at the time, said the expanding internet would ultimately let automakers sell vehicles directly to consumers.
Uh-oh.
“As a 39-year-old guy running a family store, I thought that was a bad idea,” Kain said. “I got elected to the 2000 dealer council because of that.”
Today’s dealers leverage the internet in powerful ways, FordDirect among them. But back then, many dealers feared the internet. They thought it would cut them out. So, a pioneering joint digital venture between Ford dealers and the automaker was a big deal. And a relief to jittery dealers.
On the Ford dealer council with Kain was Florida dealer Leo Hillock. FordDirect was his brainchild.
“Leo said, ‘Rather than fight Ford on this internet thing, why don’t we get in business with them,’” Kain recalled.
Council members didn’t know it at the time, but Hillock had already bought the FordDirect.com URL. That was a start, but there was much more to do.
The dealer council, at the suggestion of Jerry Reynolds, a Texas dealer who headed the body, put seed money into the proposal “to prove to Bob Rewey that we were legit,” said Kain.
Then council members campaigned to get fellow dealers on board. Jim O’Connor, who was Ford’s vice president of sales and marketing at the time, said the automaker would green-light the project if major dealers backed it, according to Kain.
“So, we went on a road show with influential dealers — Bert Boeckmann, Fred Beans, Sam Pack,” Kain said. “I still remember Fred Beans saying: ‘A poor plan executed is better than no plan at all.’”
Dealers liked the idea. But some executives of state dealer associations pushed back.
“We presented the plan to all 50 state association executives,” recalled Kain. “They initially were against it because they saw the OEM involved. They needed to be sure dealers were the major influencers of the product.”
Hillock was FordDirect’s CEO for several years. Initially, dealers opposed a Ford company person running the show. Eventually, FordDirect CEOs were tapped from the automaker’s executive corps.
“It became a new way to bring Ford employees through that digital orientation,” said Kain. “What we found is that the Ford guys really care about the dealers.”
FordDirect has evolved over the years into a multi-purpose platform.
Until late last year, Dean Stoneley headed FordDirect. He is credited with adopting new data platform uses, including artificial intelligence. He is now Ford’s executive director of global product marketing.
“FordDirect is unique. It’s entirely a joint venture between Ford and its dealers. It serves both,” Stoneley said at an industry conference in 2025. “We all have a shared interest in attracting, retaining, converting and engaging with customers as they interact digitally. We closed the gap.”
Of Stoneley, Brian Godfrey, president of Pat Milliken Ford in Redford, Michigan, and chairman of FordDirect’s board of managers, said in a press release: "His vision and commitment have been pivotal in driving our strategic initiatives.”
Stoneley is succeeded at FordDirect by Chris Thornton, who had been Ford Customer Service Division’s director of retail customer experience and products.
“My commitment is to continue driving our vision: to be an indispensable partner to Ford dealers, Lincoln retailers and Ford Motor Company by giving them a superior ability to win at retail," Thornton said in a prepared statement.
Several attempts by WardsAuto to reach Thornton for additional comment were unsuccessful.
Kain stayed at FordDirect for three-and-a-half years. It wasn’t like he needed the work, as he also was running his family dealership, Jack Kain Ford, in Kentucky. “I would operate the family store, and then on Tuesday fly to Dearborn to work there,” he tells WardsAuto.
Kain went on to become a digital auto-retailing consultant. He disinvested his stake in the dealership (founded by his father, Jack Kain) on the premise that ownership should be limited to family members working there.
As a digital auto-retailing consultant he held workshops at dealerships and conferences where his presentations typically were standing-room-only sessions. Kain recently sold his consulting business to dealer-centric NCM Associates.
“We’ll see what’s next,” he said.
