Genuine Parts Company Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference

Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

No, it is great to be here.

Yeah, happy to, and thanks for having us. This is obviously our first opportunity to talk about the announcement.

Looking forward to the discussion. We've been working on this for quite some time, as you would expect, and we're thrilled to be able to announce what we did last week. The way to think about it is we really were solving for two or three different thoughts. The first and foremost is making sure that we've got the right talent aligned with the right business strategy. It starts with the business strategy, making sure that we've got the skills and the capabilities of the leadership team aligned to go and execute against that. That was kind of pillar number one. Pillar number two is what I would call kind of continuity and familiarity, where we needed to, especially in this transaction, make sure that on the Motion side, we were ready to be the public company right out of the gates.

That was a pillar number two. 2B, I would say, is familiarity, which is how do we make sure that we maintain and sustain the business momentum that we have and the strategic work that we've done over the last two to five years on both sides of the business. I think if you look at the announcement, we've solved a lot of those objectives, starting obviously with Bert. Bert has been with the business for five years.

As I've said publicly and certainly internally, Bert plays a bigger role than just the financial officer of the company. Having him elevate and take on more responsibility on the automotive side fits all three of our criterion. Bert will do a great job taking on more and working with Court, who I'll talk about here in a second. On the industrial side, similarly, James Howe, a fantastic talent. He's been with Motion for over 30 years. He's had every single role in the business. Motion obviously has been an operating division of a public company, and so my public company background kind of partnered up with James and the team, I think, positions us to hit the ground running early on. Court will be a fantastic addition to the team, as you alluded to in your question.

He's got all of the things that we need in a leader of the automotive business. He actually has automotive experience. Similar to when I joined Genuine Parts Company, he's a distribution guy by trade. All of the value creation levers associated with anything distribution are relevant. Court's a high energy, high passion guy, great followership. He has been in the boardroom for the last couple of years, so in terms of understanding our strategy, he's very well up to speed. He knows the team. The leadership team respects him. I think he brings a lot of relevant expertise in terms of supply chain and tech and global business and global sourcing and e-commerce and everything in between. We're thrilled to have him. Both sides of the business are super energized. I would obviously admit that people were waiting for this announcement internally.

I think the clarity that we've provided everybody has created a lot of positive energy. We're looking forward to closing out the year and then getting started in 2027.

Yeah, I would say on the last part of your question, the nice thing about the way in which we've set up these teams is the strategies have really been put in place well before this moment in time.