As part of the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Awards, Cherokee Media Group is honoring a select group of outstanding auto industry analysts for their contribution to the knowledge base of the used-car retail, finance and remarketing industries.

Next up on our series of podcasts with these first-ever honorees in the Automotive Intelligence Awards: Industry Analysts program is a conversation with Jonathan Banks, vice president of product development & valuation services at J.D. Power.

Banks talks about first job in automotive — packing books into envelopes during what was supposed to be a summer job at ALG in 1995 — and how that evolved into a decades-long career on the analytics side of the industry.

The full conversation can be found below.

Banks and his fellow honorees will be recognized in the April edition of the Auto Fin Journal publication and at the Auto Intel Summit, which is April 8-10 at the Embassy Suites in Cary, N.C.

Also included in the magazine and conference recognition will be the Automotive Intelligence Awards: Emerging Companies program, which will recognize emerging companies and entrepreneurs charging forward to make their mark on the used-car industry. These companies will be honored for improving a specific aspect of the business through technology.

In addition to respective luncheons at AIS recognizing these honorees, there will be panel discussions featuring representatives from the Automotive Intelligence Award recipients.

More details on those luncheons, panels and the full AIS agenda can be found here: Agenda | AIS & NRC 2025.