Tony Aquila

Last updated

Tony Aquila
Tony Aquila Headshot.png
Born
Richmond, CA
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Chairman & CEO of Canoo Inc., and Founder & Chairman and CEO of AFV Partners LLC
Employer(s)Canoo Technologies, Inc.
AwardsNational EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2013 Technology Award winner

Tony Aquila, is an entrepreneur in the United States. He is the Chairman and CEO of Canoo Technologies, Inc.

Contents

Aquila has Italian and Lebanese roots. He is an investor, serial entrepreneur, and inventor associated with 100+ patents in the automotive, aeronautics and cybersecurity sectors. [ citation needed ] In 2022, Tony was appointed to the Future Mobility Council for the State of Arkansas by Governor Hutchinson.[ citation needed ]

In 2005, Aquila launched Solera Holdings, an automotive technology company. He took Solera public through a $1 billion IPO in 2007 and private again in 2016, at a valuation of $6.5 billion. During his tenure as CEO, Solera significantly expanded market share, executed more than 50 acquisitions, and employed more than 7,000 people in 90+ countries, including significant business across the MENA region.[ citation needed ]

Early life

Aquila was born in Richmond, California to an immigrant and military family. [1] After dropping out of high school, Aquila worked at his uncle's body shop sweeping floors and replacing windshields. [2] [1] [3]

Business career

Canoo Technologies, Inc.

Tony Aquila was an initial investor in Canoo, before becoming a member of the Board. He was named Board Chair in October, 2020, [4] and CEO in March 2021. [5] Utilizing their Multi-Purpose Platform, they plan to build multiple variants of vehicles, [6] MPDV [7] (Multi Purpose Delivery Vehicle), [8] and upcoming Canoo Sports Vehicle. [9] The LV was planned for production in late 2022. The MPDV, Truck, and Sports Car were planned for 2023 2024 and 2025 respectively. Under an agreement established in November 2020, Canoo reimbursed Aquila Family Ventures, a company owned by Canoo's CEO, for the use of a private aircraft, with expenditures amounting to $1.7 million in 2023, surpassing the company’s $886,000 in revenue for that year. Additionally, Canoo compensated Aquila Family Ventures for shared services support at its Justin, Texas, corporate office, totaling another $1.7 million in 2023, as detailed in regulatory filings. [10]

Solera Holdings, Inc.

Since founding the company in 2005, Aquila served as the chairman and CEO of Solera Holdings until his departure in May 2019. [11] [12] He sued Solera in 2019 for breach of contract. [13]

Mitchell International, Inc.

Aquila is the former president and chief operating officer of Mitchell International, Inc., a company that provides claims estimating and communications software to insurance carriers. Aquila joined Mitchell in 2001 after it had acquired Ensera. [14] [15] [16]

Ensera, Inc.

Aquila was founder and CEO of Ensera, Inc., a claims workflow software company for the vehicle insurance and collision industry. [1]

MaxMeyer America, Inc.

Prior to Ensera, Aquila was founder and CEO of MaxMeyer America, Inc. (a subsidiary of MaxMeyer Duco, SPA, Italy), an importer and distributor of European automotive refinishing products. In 1997, PPG Industries acquired MaxMeyer Duco, SPA. [14] [15] [16]

Related Research Articles

Graham Holdings Company is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of The Washington Post newspaper and Newsweek magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lazard</span> American investment bank

Lazard Inc. is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's largest independent investment bank, with principal executive offices in New York City, Paris and London.

Kurt Joachim Lauk is a German businessman and former politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament for Baden-Württemberg from 2004 until 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AutoNation</span> American automotive retailer

AutoNation is an American automotive retailer based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which provides new and pre-owned vehicles and associated services in the United States. The company was founded by Wayne Huizenga in 1996, starting with twelve AutoNation locations, and now has more than 300 retail outlets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exide</span> American manufacturer of lead-acid batteries

Exide was originally a brand name for batteries produced by The Electric Storage Battery Company and later became Exide Holdings, Inc. doing business as Exide Technologies, an American lead-acid batteries manufacturing company. Exide Holdings manufactured automotive batteries and industrial batteries. Exide Holdings is based in Milton, Georgia, United States.

American Plastics, formerly Katy Industries, Inc., is a holding company for a group of businesses who produce and distribute maintenance products and electrical products. The first manufactures and distributes commercial cleaning products, and sells consumer home and automotive storage products. The second designs and distributes consumer electrical-corded products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fisker Automotive</span> Defunct American motor vehicle manufacturer

Fisker Automotive was an American automobile company. It produced the Fisker Karma, which was one of the world's first production luxury plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The company was founded in 2007 by Henrik Fisker, a Danish automobile designer.

Solera Inc is an American company based in Texas which provides risk management and asset protection software and services to the automotive industry and property insurance marketplace. Solera also provides digital identity management services, as well as re-underwriting and data analytics for the automotive, property and casualty insurance industries. Solera is active in 88 countries across six continents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RLJ Companies</span> American asset management firm

The RLJ Companies is an American asset management firm owned by entrepreneur Robert Louis Johnson. After selling Black Entertainment Television in 2001, Johnson's first company, he created RLJ Companies in Bethesda, Maryland. The company's network includes hotel real estate investment, private equity, financial services, asset management, insurance services, car dealerships, sports and entertainment, and video lottery terminal (VLT) gaming. The company is headquartered in Bethesda and has additional offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Little Rock, Arkansas; Los Angeles, California; San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Monrovia, Liberia.

Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines including namesake and flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda, Kayak, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. It operates websites in about 40 languages and 200 countries.

Vroom, Inc. is a parent company of United Auto Credit Corporation (UACC) and CarStory. Previously, it was a used car retailer and e-commerce company that let consumers buy, sell, and finance cars online. Vroom ceased e-commerce automotive sales operations on January 22, 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Vijayan</span> Indian-American entrepreneur

Jayaprakash "Jay" Vijayan is a US-based entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, and investor. He is the founder and CEO of Tekion Corp, a SaaS company based in the United States. Prior to founding Tekion, he served as chief information officer (CIO) at Tesla Motors. He also worked for VMware and Oracle.

Nikola Corporation is an American manufacturer of heavy-duty commercial battery-electric vehicles, fuel-cell electric vehicles, and energy solutions. It presented several concept vehicles from 2016 to 2020, the first of which was a natural gas fueled turbine-electric semi truck. The company went public on June 4, 2020. In February 2022, the company projected deliveries of between 300 and 500 of its first battery-electric semitrucks — known as the Nikola Tre — to customers. The company delivered its first two battery-electric trucks in December 2021. Like Tesla, Inc., the company is named in honor of Nikola Tesla, but these are not related to the inventor. Nikola Corporation is based in Phoenix, Arizona.

Fisker Inc. is an American automotive company founded by Danish automotive designer Henrik Fisker and his wife Geeta Gupta-Fisker.

Workhorse Group Incorporated, originally AMP Electric Vehicles, is an original equipment manufacturer and technology company headquartered in Sharonville, Ohio, U.S. Workhorse makes commercial electric vehicles and telematics software designed for last-mile delivery. Their products include commercial electric vehicles and the Metron telematics software system.

Richard Kim is a Korean-American car designer, known for his work on the BMW i3 and i8 electric cars. He joined Canoo in 2017 as Chief Design Officer and Co-Founder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nio Inc.</span> Chinese car company

Nio Inc. is a Chinese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Shanghai, specializing in designing and developing electric vehicles. The company was established in 2014, and adopted its current name in 2016. In 2018, Nio filed for a initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The company expanded its sales to the European market in 2021. As of 2023, Nio has two manufacturing plants in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, in collaboration with state-owned vehicle manufacturer JAC Group.

Stephanie Kugelman is a retired advertising executive, branding expert and executive mentor. She is the former Vice Chairman and Chief Strategic officer of Young & Rubicam Inc, which was a publicly traded S&P company until its acquisition by British holding company WPP plc in 2000 for $4.7 billion. Her career at Y&R started as a junior researcher and she remains a Vice Chairman Emeritus of the company. As a brand strategist, since 2011 has most recently served on the public boards of Whole Foods Market, and Young & Rubicam Inc, and sits on the board of Home Shopping Network(HSN). She is also Vice Chairman of Solera Capital, a New York private equity firm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canoo</span> American electric vehicle manufacturer

Canoo Inc. is an American automotive company based in Torrance, California, that develops and manufactures electric vehicles. Canoo's research & development team is based in Michigan, in the Detroit region, and production operations are in Justin, Texas. The company also plans to produce commercial electric vehicles such as vans for fleet, vehicle rental and ride sharing services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canoo MPDV</span> Electric van produced by Canoo

The Canoo Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle is a line of battery electric delivery vans produced by Canoo, the first of which was unveiled in December 2020. There are three planned models, the MPDV1 and the taller MPDV2, both sharing the same wheelbase and platform as the earlier Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle, and the MPDV3, which will use an enlarged version of the same platform.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Tony Aquila: "I Saw It as the Perfect Deal"". AGRR. 16 (6): 34–36. 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  2. ↑ "CEO Goes From Garage to Running a $5B Auto Co". Bloomberg. February 20, 2014. Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ Heid, Jason (2014). "Breakfast With: Tony Aquila". D CEO. D Magazine. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Electric Vehicle Company Canoo Announces Appointment Of Tony Aquila As Executive Chairman". Press | Canoo. October 20, 2020. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  5. ↑ "Executive Chairman Tony Aquila Also Named CEO of Canoo to Lead Next Phase of Company's Growth". Press | Canoo. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Canoo Vehicle". www.canoo.com. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle". www.canoo.com. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  8. ↑ "Pickup Truck". www.canoo.com. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Future". www.canoo.com. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
  10. ↑ "Canoo spent double its annual revenue on the CEO's private jet in 2023". www. techcrunch.com. April 2024.
  11. ↑ Womack, Brian (May 30, 2019). "Solera replacing founder Tony Aquila with data and technology veteran for CEO role". Dallas Business Journal. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  12. ↑ O'Donnell, Paul (June 4, 2019). "Solera Holdings founder Tony Aquila says new CEO joins firm with his 'full support'". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Former CEO sues Solera over alleged breach of separation deal".
  14. 1 2 "United States SEC Filings Form S-1". SEC. United States Securities and Exchange Commission. February 12, 2007. Retrieved July 14, 2016.
  15. 1 2 "Tony Aquila - Executive Bio, Compensation History, and Contacts - Equilar Atlas". people.equilar.com. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  16. 1 2 "GTCR Announces Partnership with Tony Aquila to Form Solera | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com (Press release). Retrieved July 15, 2016.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.