Board Member Spotlight: Lori Murtagh

As chief risk leader for SCI LeaseCorp and SCI Marketview in Markham, Ontario, Canada, Lori Murtagh focuses much of her attention on compliance issues.

That includes keeping an eye on compliance topics in the U.S., and she participates in alliances such as IARA that address those topics. Privacy issues related to connected vehicles with telematics is one example of those compliance areas of focus.

Features such as navigation systems capture a great deal of data that many consumers might consider private. Murtagh is seeing an increased focus on determining who is responsible for that data. She has seen that many legislators in Canada and the U.S. believe that the OEM should be responsible for facilitating the ability to obtain consumer consent prior to utilizing the connected services.

“Then we’re talking a lot about when those vehicles are off-lease, and that takes us to the remarketing side of the business,” Murtagh said.

She is hearing that when vehicles are returned, the telematics systems in those vehicles might still contain what could be construed as personal information about the previous drivers.

“We’re talking about ways in which we can support deleting that data, including suggesting that to consumers themselves by virtue of communication to say, ‘When you return your car, make sure you’ve deleted all that data from your vehicle.’ We’ve been focused on trying to get ahead of any legislation that may deem the consignors to be responsible in some way, so we’re trying to be good global citizens by talking about it and generating awareness,” she said.

Keeping on top of the latest compliance issues is just one of Murtagh’s areas of focus at SCI Ltd., which includes two companies: SCI LeaseCorp, which handles leasing for Chrysler and Maserati in Canada; and SCI Marketview, which is a technology company that provides digital marketing products and services to dealers. She took on an executive leadership role in launching SCI LeaseCorp in 2015, meaning she came a long way from her start 28 years ago with Municipal Leasing, a small independently owned company in Toronto.

She worked in the legal department as part of the lease obligation enforcement team and eventually moved up to become a small claims court litigator for the company, representing it in lease contract default cases for more than seven years before she was promoted to supervisor of the legal department.

The company went through several acquisitions through the years—it was officially renamed FinanciaLinx in 1999—and she worked in various roles, including human resources. In 2007 she began serving as vice president of operations, overseeing originations, servicing, and lease maturity administration.

After GM Financial Canada acquired FinanciaLinx in 2011, Murtagh eventually transitioned to a role in operations support where she was responsible for driving technology initiatives on behalf of the business before leaving in 2015 to join SCI Ltd.

She began her role at SCI building and overseeing every aspect of SCI’s leasing business from start to finish, meaning from the initial customer credit check to the end of the lease. She explained that SCI LeaseCorp dealer clients enter their customers’ credit information into an SCI portal, and SCI funds and services the lease transaction.

“When the cars come back at lease end, we will remarket them with the solutions we have available to us,” such as physical and online auctions, she said.

In 2017, she became chief risk leader for SCI Lease Corp and SCI MarketView, supporting both businesses from risk and compliance and legal perspectives. She feels IARA will help her in that role. “I need to be a part of any partnership or committee that would put us in the same company of, in the case of IARA, other consignors that we would traditionally be likened to,” she said. She joined IARA last year and now serves as the co-lead for the alliance’s compliance chapter in Canada. She was elected to the board of directors effective this year. 

She likes that IARA members want to share best practices to support the remarketing industry as a whole. “The information sharing, the news, and knowledge has been probably the most compelling in terms of where I see the value in that committee.”