After graduating from Ferris Status University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree I was fortunate enough to be hired by Toyota Tsusho America, which is the trading company for the Toyota group of companies. Starting out as an Account Manager, I was responsible for the Vendor to Vendor business, which entailed purchasing components from Japan and supplying them to Toyota Motor’s North American supply base. This was an awesome opportunity to learn the Japanese culture, Toyota’s Production System, Kaizen and how a world-class OEM functions. During my tenure, I was promoted to Manager of the Automotive Parts Division, which represented over $150 million in sales while operating a cross dock operation out of their Georgetown, Kentucky facility. This was truly an awesome first step in my career.
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While working at Toyota Tsusho, one of our customers, Shiloh Industries, recruited me to become their New Domestic Account Manager, so in 1999 I made the transition. Being on the supplier side of the business was an eye-opening experience. I was fortunate enough to more than double our New Domestic business selling to Toyota, Nissan and Isuzu. Because of my success, I was promoted to Ford Business Unit Manager, which was Shiloh’s largest account of over $100 million in annual sales.
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During my tenure at Shiloh, I learned how to turn a distressed company into a success story through the strong leadership of one person one person; Ted Zampetis. I was an integral part of his Leadership Team that saw a company with too much debt and a very low stock price be turned around to a flourishing company with almost no debt and a stock price that went up over 800%.
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In 2005, however, I was lured back to the Japanese business by taking over Challenge Mfg.’s Honda business. I was responsible for growing Challenge’s business from under $2 million to over $35 million in just three short years. I was very proud of my accomplishment, because I was responsible for all aspects of the business from Program Management, Purchasing to Sales. We were becoming one Honda’s largest North American stamping suppliers. Because of my success with Honda, I was promoted to the Sales and Marketing Manager responsible for all of Challenge’s sales activity, which was more than $350 million.
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In mid 2008 Honda approached me to see if I would be interested in working with one of their new Co-Management tool and die companies, Tooling Systems Group (TSG). This was a very unique opportunity. TSG was a significant supplier of stamping dies in North America, but they also built assembly equipment. I felt that the time was right for a Turnkey supplier; someone who could produce not only the stamping dies, but also the assembly equipment. Thereby eliminating the disconnect many programs incur by not connecting the stamping dies to the assembly equipment. There was no one providing a Turnkey solution in the Market, so in September of 2008 I accepted a Senior Account Manager position.
Going into my 11th year at TSG I have overseen a sales increase of 197% ($102 Million) for a total of $160 million in annual revenue, the addition of Hot Stamp Tooling, Ultimate Gaging Systems, Rapid Tooling Systems and Banyan Tooling Systems, a wholly owned tool and die company in Dongguan, China.
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To help with our Turnkey strategy we knew we needed to have a global footprint for automation. It was decided that we needed to find a global multinational company that could give us the footprint required to execute our Turnkey strategy. So, in 2016 I introduced Nachi Fujikoshi to TSG and then went on to negotiate the 51% sale of Specialty Tooling Systems our automation company. TSG now has a Global Program Management Department, die and assembly build capabilities in North America and China. We are now building Turnkey programs for the tier 1 and automotive OEM’s in North America and Europe. The Turnkey strategy has been a key factor of our exceptional growth over the last 16 years.
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I am interested in securing an executive leadership position with a company seeking substantial profitable growth by leveraging my 30-year proven track record of driving innovation, strategic planning and team development through a visionary approach. Please feel free to contact me via cell phone 248-514-3163 or through my email DanJennings@Dan-Jennings.com.
Thank you
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Dan Jennings
