An End and a Beginning: Angela Rizzo Handing the Mic to Mike

In her final symbolic interview, outgoing Chief Marketing Officer and founding host of Cue the Next Leader podcast, Angela Rizzo, hands the microphone to Michael Hopkins, the person who will succeed her in both roles.

Angela and Michael have a long history together and Michael credits Angela as a friend, a colleague, and a mentor for many years. They forged their decade long friendship through volunteer opportunities and shared community involvement, including the Metzler Mentor Program, started by Michael and on which Angela served as a mentor.

Michael Hopkins has been with VINCUE since 2021, originally serving as Chief Marketing Officer for a year before a brief hiatus where he helped found a whiskey distillery in Kansas City. He came back in 2022 as Chief Experience Officer and worked closely with Angela and the marketing team to extend the VINCUE brand identity, messaging, and mission to current dealers and partners.

During the interview, Angela shares some of her favorite memories at VINCUE and as host of the podcast, including some fun episodes with VINCUE dealers like Patrick Abad of Beaver Toyota of Cumming, Liza Borches of Carter Myers Automotive, Jose Lazo of South Dade Toyota and Bob Kain with Jack Kain Ford.

She also interviews Michael about plans for his new role and the future of the podcast. Michael answers that the next few years at VINCUE will be all about taking advantage of the momentum and structures in place and using them to scale sales, marketing, and onboarding exponentially. As host of the podcast, Michael plans to invite more VINCUE employees to share the mic and speak directly with #TamVINCUE dealers, partners, and automotive industry thought leaders.

Cue the Next Leader is an automotive industry podcast from VINCUE, the company behind the only Vehicle Lifecycle Management solution that unifies every step of the inventory Plan, Buy, Manage, and Sell process. Cue the Next Leader is a series of conversations designed to focus on a common journey and help automotive leaders go further, faster, by learning from other operators in our industry.