Due to continued growth, and the successful introduction and adoption of Black Book's industry-leading data and analytics products and services, Black Book, one of the most recognized brands in the automotive and automotive finance industries, is expanding its Senior Management Team with the addition of a new executive leadership role. This strategic investment reflects the company's commitment to accelerating future growth, driving innovation, and further strengthening its position as a trusted leader across the automotive ecosystem. As Black Book continues to invest significantly in technology, data intelligence, and market expansion initiatives, this new role will play a critical part in helping shape and execute the company's long-term business strategy.
Position Summary
Based in our suburban Atlanta corporate office and reporting to the President, the Head of Residual Strategy will lead our residual value modeling and predictive valuation capability across the U.S. and Canada.
This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for one of the core economic engines of the business-residual value forecasting and analytics. You will own the strategy, modeling direction, and performance of residual outputs, ensuring they are accurate, stable, explainable, and trusted by the market.
Operating at the intersection of data science, domain expertise, and product, this role translates complex modeling capabilities into customer value, product innovation, and revenue growth while serving as a key external voice for Black Book, representing our residual strategy and market perspective with clients, partners, and industry stakeholders while helping strengthen Black Book's position as a trusted authority in residual value forecasting and risk analytics.
Experience
- 15+ years in auto finance, residual modeling, forecasting, and/or related analytics domains
- Bachelors degree in Data Science or related field such as Mathematics, Statistics or computer science. ย Masters or PhD strongly preferredย
- Deep understanding of leasing economics, residual risk, and ABS/securitization marketsย
- Experience with statistical modeling, machine learning approaches, and AI adoptionย
- Experience working directly with captives, lenders, and institutional investorsย
Capabilities
- Ability to bridge technical modeling and business strategyย
- Strong understanding of model behavior, limitations, and explainabilityย
- Ability to communicate complex outputs clearly to technical and business audiencesย
- High credibility in customer-facing environmentsย
Nice to Have
- Experience building or scaling data productsย
- Exposure to API-based delivery and analytics platformsย
- Experience working with production AI/ML systemsย
What This Role Is Not
- Not a pure data science execution roleย
- Not a traditional product managerย
- Not an internal-only analytics role
Company Background:
A wholly owned subsidiary of HEARST (one of the nations' largest diversified media companies), and part of the HEARST Transportation Division, Black Book is one of the most recognizable brands in the industry and is a leading provider of vehicle pricing and automotive data and analytics to the automotive and finance industries.ย With a focus on innovative solutions, world class data and analytics and a goal of delivering our customers the most precise data to help them reduce risk and increase profitability, we publish and deliver our data on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in various electronic formats which include, but are not limited to: data feeds; web-services; Internet-based applications; smart phone resident applications; online trade appraisal service software; traditionally printed guidebooks.
We are guided by our core values of Own It, Continuously Improve, Be Agile and Celebrate Success, while focusing on our unique offerings that include our Data, our Approach, and our Flexibility.
To learn more about our products and company history, please visitย our website atย www.BlackBook.com
Residual Strategy & Forecasting
- Own residual value forecasts across new and used vehiclesย
- Define and evolve modeling approaches including mileage, trims, volatility, segmentation, and model-year transitionsย
- Ensure outputs are accurate, stable, explainable, defensible, and aligned to customer and market needsย
- Support use cases across captives, lenders, ABS/securitization, insurance, and fleet analyticsย
- Expand residual capabilities and enable new analytics opportunitiesย
Modeling Leadership
- Define modeling objectives and success criteria around accuracy, stability, and explainabilityย
- Partner with Data Science to guide development approaches, feature design, and target definitionsย
- Ensure models adhere to established QA, validation, and documentation standardsย
- Establish scalable lifecycle processes across development, validation, release, monitoring, and iterationย
- Manage exception handling, volatility controls, and release readinessย
- Ensure strong documentation, terminology consistency, and knowledge transferย
Customer & Industry Leadership
- Serve as a trusted advisor to captives, lenders, institutional investors, fleet organizations, and insurance carriersย
- Lead resolution of customer escalations and methodology challengesย
- Support strategic sales conversations, portfolio analysis, and risk-related engagementsย
- Clearly communicate model behavior, market shifts, and residual trendsย
Product & Commercial Collaboration
- Partner with Product to translate residual capabilities into customer-facing solutionsย
- Influence roadmap prioritization and monetizable analytics opportunitiesย
- Support go-to-market efforts through messaging, use case development, and deal supportย
- Drive scalable product innovation and revenue-generating opportunitiesย
Thought Leadership
- Define Black Book's perspective on residual risk, market volatility, and portfolio performanceย
- Lead and contribute to market outlooks, residual value reports, and conference presentationsย
- Strengthen Black Book's position as a trusted authority in residual analytics and forecastingย
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Lead a dedicated Residual Data Science team and Residual Analyst functionย
- Partner across Data Science, Product, Data & Market Intelligence, BI, Sales, and Marketingย
- Drive alignment across teams to ensure clear ownership, efficient execution, and consistent outputsย
What Success Looks Like
- Residual outputs meet defined accuracy, stability, and explainability targetsย
- Customers trust Black Book to support portfolio risk and strategic planning decisionsย
- Residual analytics drive scalable product innovation and new revenue opportunitiesย
- Black Book strengthens its reputation as a leader in residual value forecastingย