How Mentorship Bridges the Corporate and Startup Worlds
For more than a decade, Cox employees have contributed thousands of hours as mentors to Atlanta’s early-stage founders through local accelerators and venture programs, strengthening the city’s rise as an innovation hub. In this three-part series, we introduce you to some of the mentors behind that impact. Read on for part 1, then check out part 2 and part 3.
After 17 years at Cox Automotive, senior director of strategy Stacey Yeager saw herself firmly rooted in the corporate world. The startup space, she jokes, belonged to her husband.
“My husband is in the venture space in Atlanta, and so he was always the startup guy and I’m the big-company woman,” she said. Through him, she gained a deeper appreciation for how difficult it is to build a company from the ground up. “It’s not really about how good the idea is. There are so many other variables that play into that.”
So when she was tapped to serve as a mentor for the Cox Cleantech Accelerator, a program that supports startups pioneering new sustainability solutions, she was immediately intrigued.
“It was very exciting to get a window into a totally different industry, and one with such a great purpose of trying to leave the world better than the way you found it,” she said. “I feel like I got to help people who were really trying to do something good for the world, which made me feel great.”
The companies in each cohort receive an investment from Cox Enterprises, along with mentorship and connections to help them scale, secure pilots and land commercial contracts. Stacey ultimately connected with two founders in the accelerator’s 2025 cohort, including Stak Mobility, a company developing automated vertical parking systems integrated with EV charging and mobile self-service technology.
“I feel like I got to help people who were really trying to do something good for the world, which made me feel great.”
She quickly saw a potential connection between the startup’s technology and Cox Automotive’s operations. “We have millions of cars over the course of a year that get parked with us [at Manheim],” she said. “An increasing number of those need EV charging, and I thought that could be a cool opportunity for them to explore a different use case of their product.”
From there, Stacey helped the founders understand how a large enterprise evaluates new ideas and partnerships. “My mentoring for them was helping them understand our business so he could see what that opportunity might be and how to speak the language to make this sound appealing to one of our business leaders,” she said. Together, they developed a proposal and began conversations with Manheim around a potential proof of concept.
She also advised Uptime Analytics, a company focused on industrial asset performance, where her contribution wasn’t industry connections but business insight. Drawing on her background in change management, Stacey helped the founders think through organizational structure, customer adoption and how their team should evolve as the business grows.
“I learned that it’s really not about whether you understand the particulars of a given company,” she said. “It’s about the experience that you bring professionally that can be applied to the challenges that those companies are encountering.”
“You can have longevity and you can have a really varied career here, because we have that breadth and these kinds of programs.”
For Stacey, the experience also became a development opportunity at a midpoint in her career. She quickly raised her hand to mentor future cohorts after finding the work so meaningful.
“I just really love that these kinds of options are available to us to continue to grow, because that’s what keeps all of us engaged in work,” she said. “You can have longevity and you can have a really varied career here, because we have that breadth and these kinds of programs.”
Learn more about our workplace and how you can make an impact at Cox.
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