International Women's Day Q&A: carwow MD Sally Foote

The carwow managing director Sally Foote has told AM how inspiring female role models and a positive working environment accelerated her career into the automotive sector.

In an exclusive Q&A to coincide with International Women's Day (IWD) she reveals that more can always be done to create a level playing field for success.

You started your career as a news writer and have experience in many different sectors. What was your view of automotive retail before joining carwow and how has that altered (if it has)?

To be honest, when I was looking for a new role, a headhunter asked me whether there were any sectors I wouldn’t work in, and I explicitly said “automotive.” All my experiences in the sector had been with organisations that had a huge amount of legacy to deal with - both in terms of technology and culture.

I knew that I wanted to be in a high-growth business that was focused on building the future rather than trying to plaster over the past.   

I’ve spent my career working in markets that are being disrupted in some way and automotive couldn’t really have more disruption going on. The reality I’ve discovered, is incredible agility and appetite, not just from carwow but also from OEMs, retailer partners and others to adapt to change and drive innovation.   

Having held a number of senior leadership positions, do you view encouraging and motivating other women to progress to board level as a personal responsibility?

Encouraging and motivating women to progress? Absolutely. To board level, not necessarily. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with and meet a wide range of exceptional women through my career and not all of them want to be on boards and that’s okay, too. Many have thrived as consultants, founders, coaches or individual contributors for example, in engineering or design.

I consciously invest time and effort both in the companies I work in and across my wider network, supporting women in figuring out what they want to do, encouraging them to create and take opportunities and by connecting them to one another and others in my network.

I’m grateful for everyone who has done the same for me. 

What attracted you to carwow?

It was hard not be impressed by what carwow has already achieved, but also by the opportunity it has in front of it.

I loved the founders' stories, and the fact that James Hind and David Santoro are still as committed to solving the problems they set out to tackle as they were when they started.

Having worked across other digital businesses, I was also deeply attracted to a commercial model where 60% of your traffic is organic.

The reach and following that Mat Watson and his now global team have built is a phenomenal achievement, and of course I’m excited about how we can better connect the incredible work our content teams do with our website, supporting shoppers as they choose their next cars, whether that's new or used. 

But, perhaps most exciting was that I joined when our stock sourcing product was very new to the market. The opportunity to help scale that and integrate the consumer experience of selling your old vehicle when buying your new one, was just too tempting.

What does International Women’s Day mean to you?

I’ve been very lucky in my life and my career to have been supported by some incredible women, some of whom have changed the trajectory of my whole life.

We don’t often take the time to remember the impact these people have had. Sometimes they don’t even know how much they have done.

So, for me, IWD is a moment in the year for gratitude and, coupled with that, the chance to give back by supporting others.

Who is your inspiration in business?

I am a huge fan of Claire Davenport. She’s a phenomenal CEO (most recently at Not on the High Street) and she’s smart, driven, formidably capable and has huge personal humility. 

But what I have admired most about her over the past few years is her investment in developing female talent in tech. She’s given me some of the most up-front and straightforward advice I’ve ever had in my life, and her commitment to the advancement of women in e-commerce is nothing short of extraordinary.

How is carwow addressing diversity and inclusion?

DE&I is a recurrent theme for carwow and we have an annual initiative-based plan that the whole executive team is committed to supporting.

We have just this week shared the 2023 plans with the whole company and outlined our three areas of focus for this year, which are improving our data collection and reporting, developing our community partnerships and continuing to evolve our recruitment processes. 

We already screen job descriptions for gendered language as standard, and require all ‘carwowers’ to complete mandatory DE&I training.

Our employee-led Diversity Committees are thriving - promoting education and awareness initiatives internally, while also working with our local communities and championing customer-facing initiatives across our locations.

We run a bi-annual D&I survey to measure progress and openly share our results with our teams.

But we want to do more and that’s why we’re now training hiring managers to remove any unconscious bias from the selection process. 

We know that flexibility is an incredibly important way to support diversity and inclusion in the business.

We also provide enhanced parental leave, alongside pregnancy loss and fertility treatment leave.

This year we want to focus more on developing and supporting women in positions of leadership with executive-sponsored networking, building an internal mentoring group and we’re proud to be members of the Automotive 30% Club.

Do you have specific targets for diversity and inclusion?

I think that targets can create the impression that you can be ‘done’ with diversity and inclusion when a specific number is reached. In reality, diversity and inclusion is something that should be worked on consistently. 

At carwow, we measure ourselves across the whole range of areas that we think will create a diverse workforce, from age, gender, education, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and disability.

In our 2022 employee engagement survey we were proud to score a record-high result, meaning that the majority of our colleagues are net-promoters of carwow.

Earlier in my career I had the good fortune of being invited to be part of a mentoring group for senior women and future leaders, in the organisation I was in. It was led by the Chief People Officer and it was excellent.

I’m still in touch with most of the women in that group and, as ‘alumni’, they have gone on to work for all sorts of different organisations in all sorts of roles. 

And, like we are at carwow, I’m sure many of them will be copying that programme and setting up similar groups to provide mentoring and coaching support to the future female leaders. 

What are the key industry challenges and opportunities you wish to address as MD at carwow?

We want our consumers to find the right car for them, from the best retailer, at the right price. While we’re seeing discounting levels start to gradually creep up as supply begins to return, it’s a long way from where it was pre-pandemic.

It’s more important than ever that when a consumer chooses a car, they can make a decision that is based on overall value.

Car comparison is about being able to choose the make, model and trim you’re looking for, but also understand how a package of retailer benefits like part-exchange contributions, servicing or home charger installation, make up a ‘great deal’.

I’m excited by the opportunity this presents for consumers and for retailers who want the opportunity in marketplaces to better represent bundled value that goes far beyond discount. It’s clear we could do a lot more here.

Over the next few years the chip shortage problem will flow into the used car market increasing demand for the lower available car volumes and driving up stock prices. We believe our stock-buying solution provides a great opportunity for retailers to buy direct from a wider set of consumers, improving their margins and getting forecourts restocked really quickly.

What does the future of automotive retail look like?

Behaviours such as buying a car fully online - previously not expected to happen at scale for decades - is now widely available, accelerated not only because of the pandemic but also down to mass advertising by the ‘digital disruptors’.

We think it will still be quite some time before buying fully online is embraced by the majority, and we expect car buying to remain a blend of online and offline experiences. People value their relationship with the retailer, being able to see cars physically and test drive them, and knowing that they’re nearby for future servicing and repairs.

On carwow, 57% of people buy from their closest retailer and we don’t see that changing too drastically.

Our role as a leading marketplace for new and used cars is to empower our partners with a highly-engaged shop window, facilitating the connection between shoppers and partners.