Barry Ratzlaff

Barry Ratzlaff is the chief customer officer for Hyundai Motor North America. In this role, he is responsible for Hyundai’s customer experience strategy, retail process, sales and service training, product quality and service engineering.

Ratzlaff is a 30-year automotive veteran with roles in manufacturing, quality and product development. In his 14-plus years at Hyundai, he’s overseen the company’s rapid rise in both the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) and Customer Service Index (CSI). He has served in leadership positions in Product Quality, Service Business Development, Customer Connect, and Digital Business Planning and Connected Operations.

Ratzlaff previously served as the executive director of Customer Connect and Service Business Development for Hyundai Motor America from 2013 - 2015. He was responsible for dealer service process performance, owner marketing, consumer affairs and the deployment of Blue Link® connected car technology and other telematics services.

Since joining Hyundai in 2006, Ratzlaff has also held the positions of director of Customer Care and Connected Car, director of Service Operations, and director of Quality and Service Engineering.

Ratzlaff has extensive work history in the automotive industry, having held roles at General Motors, Toyota and DaimlerChrysler. He spent 14 years at General Motors’ Wentzville Assembly Plant, where he was responsible for process engineering and production management.

After his time at General Motors, he spent three years at Toyota. At Toyota, Ratzlaff established the quality assurance and quality control processes as part of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana start-up team. While he was at DaimlerChrysler from 2000-2006, he served as the director of Proactive Quality in Auburn Hills, Mich., where he led process re-engineering to improve vehicle quality during development and launch. From 2005-2006, Ratzlaff managed the DaimlerChrysler St. Louis, Mo., South Assembly plant.

Ratzlaff earned his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Administration and Finance from the General Motors Institute, now known as Kettering University, and he received his Master of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.