Upon graduating high school, Dannelle Walker, the daughter of Jimmy Walker (a successful auto dealer) and Zonda Walker (a teacher) — left behind the small town of Laurel, Mississippi, and headed off to The Big Apple to pursue her dreams. She attended New York University, seeking a career far away from the auto industry she grew up around, with no intention of returning home or to the family business.
Last year, after nearly 20 years of a successful career in advertising and marketing in New York — a stark contrast to the town and industry she grew up around — Dannelle began exploring the idea of returning home and succeeding her father. Her decision was a weighty one, but she knew that it was time to go back to the beginning.
In a recent interview, Dannelle recalled her thought process at this time, “He can’t do this for the rest of his life, and I don’t want him to do it for the rest of his life; I want him to get a break, but also knowing that there are a bunch of people in the store that I genuinely love and consider family. It didn’t feel right, not giving it a go.”
So, in late 2021, Dannelle decided to prepare for her return to the industry. With her cat, Lady, she began her journey across the country, all the way to California. She trained at Fullerton Ford in Fullerton, California, which she got connected with through the Ford Minority Dealers Association. At the same time, she attended the NADA Academy, a multiweek program that teaches future dealership owners and managers how to run a successful business. In pursuit of this, Dannelle flew out for one week every other month. It was at both of these places that she was able to learn valuable skills and build a network of people that she can still contact for advice or help.
“It was great. You learn so much. It’s a very intense process, but also very beneficial. The NADA instructors are, quite frankly, legends in the industry,” said Dannelle. “They know their stuff and they’re really helpful and you can reach out to them anytime. But outside of even the curriculum being really helpful and useful, meeting the people and having the connection was really great.”
In her graduation speech as class president at the NADA Academy, Dannelle testified to the opportunities that dealerships provide: “My parents grew up relatively poor … in small-town Louisiana. They were part of the first group to integrate their middle school [both went on to graduate from Grambling State University, an HBCU]. They now own two dealerships,” Walker recalled. “Sitting in class this week, it struck me how generations later, people still have very similar stories — people, who by their own accounts, say they came from nothing. People without college or even high school degrees who are running successful businesses. How many other industries can give people that kind of life-changing opportunity? This is one does it every day.”
After graduating from the NADA Academy this past April, Dannelle has begun to work under her father, Jimmy, and is preparing to take over their two stores: Laurel Ford Lincoln and Kia of Laurel.
“I am responsible for running the daily operations of the store and he is the dealer principal,” said Dannelle. “He’s still in the building almost every day but I’m trying to get to a point as soon as possible where I feel supremely comfortable running the stores.” Jimmy Walker knows the weight of passing the baton to his daughter, and, for the time being, remains in the office next to hers, available for Dannelle to ask questions or bounce ideas off. Her ultimate goal? Giving her father a chance to take a long vacation. After a lifetime of hard work and building his dealerships from the ground up, a break is well-deserved.
Almost 20 years later, Danelle has come full circle; she’s gone back to the beginning and the dealership culture she so eagerly left behind in her younger years. She has picked up on a journey that she began at 8 years old, back when she helped answer phones at her father’s first dealership in Oklahoma.
With the tools from her training and the many connections, along with the mentorship of her father, Dannelle is well-equipped to continue her father’s legacy — a legacy that he has dedicated his entire life to building.
