All Star Motors L.L.C.
President: Jessie Armstead
Former NFL football pro Jessie Armstead of All Star Motors in Hamilton, New Jersey, is expanding his holdings at a time when the recession, poor location, and other factors have forced many minority dealers to shut down. Overcoming adversity is not new to Armstead. The five-time Pro Bowl linebacker played 11 seasons with the New York Giants and Washington Redskins even after a serious injury his sophomore year at the University of Miami appeared to diminish his pro career prospects.
Armstead, 41, retired in 2007 and opened Hamilton Honda in June 2009, under All Star Motors L.L.C., which has become the tenth-largest Honda U.S. dealership out of more than 1,000 stores. He not only drove his 135-employee dealership into one of the automaker’s top-selling dealers, but clinched the No. 15 spot on the BE Auto Dealers list with $101 million in revenue for 2011. Anticipating a higher boost in Honda production, Armstead expects total sales this year to exceed $120 million.
In January, Armstead, along with business partner Mike Saporito and former New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce, acquired a bankrupted Cadillac dealership in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The trio recently re-opened the dealership as Englewood Cadillac. Armstead anticipates Englewood Cadillac will achieve sales of $80 million to $100 million within a full year of being open.
Damon Lester, president of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers, says that though Armstead comes from a nontraditional background, he learned the business by attending a dealer academy and working in the dealership. Lester notes that the Englewood Cadillac deal makes Armstead the third African American to own a Cadillac dealership nationally.
commonground
Managing Partners: Sherman Wright and Ahmad Islam
Filling a gap in the ethnic advertising industry, Sherman Wright and Ahmad Islam are using their expertise to build Chicago-based commonground into a fast-growing, integrated marketing agency. The two founding and managing partners, both 42, are part of a fresh landscape. Commonground debuted at the No. 8 spot on the BE Advertising Agencies list with $15.3 million in revenues for 2011, up from $3.3 million in 2006. The duo expects commonground to swell to 140 employees in the next three years and revenues to top $50 million in five years.
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