Unite Digital's Software Dramatically Simplifies Car-Buying

As an automotive veteran of 30 years, Stacey Coopes has utilized her knowledge of digital technology to improve the car-buying process. In the early 2000s when online shopping was in its infancy, Stacey excelled in roles at General Motors and Deloitte Consulting in e-commerce and vehicle fulfillment before transitioning to Ford Motor Company’s FordDirect, which supports dealers with digital marketing sales and service solutions. There, she began as senior vice president of strategic development and ultimately became chief executive officer and vice chairman of the Board. During this time, Stacey led the company through the most significant growth period in its 15-year history, increasing revenue by over 200 percent while launching over 25 new dealer services. She also doubled the number of digital retail sales. However, as online shopping became the norm, consumers remained dissatisfied with the auto industry’s inability to make it easy to buy a car using digital tools. In particular, they were frustrated by the amount of time spent filling out paperwork at dealerships. Additionally, dealerships began to experience a marked rise in auto theft from their lots as thieves became more adept at using technology to create false identification and financial documents to purchase and steal cars. Within this environment, Stacey created Unite Digital, LLC, a company that identified multiple areas where automakers and dealers could utilize digital tools to decrease the amount of paperwork customers had to sign as well as a way to verify the authenticity of personal documents to zero in on thieves before they could drive a vehicle off the lot. Unite Digital has created several digital tools that improve shopping and buying, but one created to address both challenges above is the Digital Deal Jacket with EZ DOCS software, which was patented in 2024. Today, Unite Digital has 90 employees and serves 17 OEM clients and over 5,000 dealership partners. Stacey holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering and an MBA from the University of Michigan.