For 30 Years, She Let the Next Chapter Find Her. Now Christina Hoyt Is Writing It Herself.

In the early 1990s, one of the jobs of a young receptionist at a BMW dealership was sorting messages into a little rotary carousel on the front desk. That included the salespeople's commission slips. Privacy wasn't part of the system, so the 20-year-old at the desk got a clear look at what the men on the sales floor were earning.

Christina Hoyt was a broke college student with no career plan. She did the math anyway. "What am I doing? Why am I going to college? I can do this."

She dropped out and started selling cars.

More than 30 years later, Christina is still in automotive, now a Senior Manager at CDK with nearly 23 years at the company and a growing voice in the Women In Automotive community. This semester, she's finishing the college degree she walked away from. A master's is already on her list. So is a doctorate. The question driving her now is different from the one she asked at that front desk. It isn't how much she could earn. It's what else she might be capable of.

Building Credibility as a Woman in Automotive in the 1990s

Christina moved from sales to sales management to F&I director. Growing up in a military family that moved often had taught her to think on her feet, adapt quickly, and build rapport with people.

She was only the second woman selling cars at the dealership, and the first became her mentor. One of that mentor's earliest pieces of advice was that Christina needed to wax or tweeze her eyebrows.

"Of all the things I thought I needed to learn about selling cars, eyebrow maintenance wasn't one of them," she recalls.

At the time, she didn't find it strange. She took the advice. Looking back, she sees what it reveals about the workplace of the 1990s. Women were learning to sell and establish credibility while also navigating expectations about how they should look and present themselves. "It was really part of navigating a male-dominated business."

Christina doesn't tell the story to criticize her mentor. She's grateful that another woman was there to guide her through an industry where they were vastly outnumbered. Today, when Christina mentors women, her advice is different. "I want them to know their ideas matter, their voices deserve to be heard, and they shouldn't feel like they have to make themselves smaller to belong."

An Automotive Career That Didn't Need a Straight Line

After about a decade in dealerships, Christina was in her early 30s, earning good money but burned out. Having grown up moving constantly, she wanted consistency. She found it at CDK, where she joined the company and met her husband during the same season. "I have been with my company longer than I've been married," she says.

At CDK, Christina found consistency without sacrificing opportunities to grow. Over more than two decades, she developed new skills and watched automotive evolve from the largely manual dealership operations she'd known into today's technology-driven industry.

"Careers don't have to follow a straight line," she says. "Sometimes that unexpected opportunity can take you somewhere you never imagined."

For years, following unexpected opportunities had served her well. Eventually, though, Christina began wondering what might happen if she chose the next one herself.

Doing Life "In Reverse"

Christina describes her path simply: "I feel like I've been doing life in reverse." She chased her career in her 20s. She started at CDK, married, and had her son in her 30s. Like many women, she balanced the responsibilities of work and family, knowing not everything would always go according to plan.

About seven years ago, she decided to return to something she'd left unfinished. Her son, now 17 and pursuing his dream of becoming an actor, is a natural academic. As Christina encouraged him to excel in school and pursue college, she found herself reflecting on her own education.

She had loved selling cars, earning money, and experiencing the opportunities her career provided. Leaving college had made sense at the time. Still, not completing her degree had become one of her biggest regrets.

So she went back, one class at a time. She started online, then took some classes in person when she discovered how much she enjoyed learning. Education hadn't come easily to Christina when she was younger, which made her newfound enthusiasm even more meaningful.

Then a mentor at CDK, Mike Stoll, introduced her to another possibility. His enthusiasm for Northwood University helped Christina recognize how her education and automotive experience could complement each other. She transferred to Northwood, where she's preparing to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Leadership.

She isn't stopping there. A master's degree is already in her plans, and when Mike mentioned that Northwood also offers doctorates, Christina added another possibility to her future. She's even told her husband to start calling her "Dr. Hoyt" for motivation.

Between her career, her son's auditions and college applications, family responsibilities, and her own homework, Christina sometimes wonders how far she can stretch herself. But she's discovering that she wants to find out.

A Different Kind of Ambition

For much of her career, Christina believed that doing good work, building relationships, and demonstrating her capabilities would naturally lead to the next opportunity. For a long time, it did.

But after more than two decades at CDK, watching colleagues grow and advance, she began asking herself what she wanted from this stage of her career. Did she want to grow beyond Senior Manager? What would that require? And what did she want the next chapter of her life to look like?

She slowed down to consider those questions and came to recognize the value of every chapter that had brought her here. The years selling cars mattered. The years raising her son while building her career mattered. Even the difficult seasons had shaped her, though she wouldn't volunteer to repeat them.

"That's when I realized that my current chapter doesn't define my entire story. It's just part of the journey," she says. "And I am the author of my own journey."

That recognition required some uncomfortable honesty. Christina had spent years coaching others, asking what they wanted and what they might do differently. Yet she hadn't been asking herself those same questions. At 53, she realized that continuing to grow meant taking greater responsibility for the direction of her own life.

Her ambition hasn't disappeared with age. It's changed. She's less concerned with proving herself and more interested in becoming the leader she wants to be.

Christina's approach is rooted in servant leadership and her Christian faith. For her, leadership isn't about being the smartest person in the room or having every answer. It's about building trust, listening, and creating an environment where people feel comfortable contributing. She wants her team to challenge ideas and question processes because she recognizes that their willingness to speak up reflects the environment she's created.

That understanding wasn't always part of her leadership style. Years ago, when Christina was a new supervisor, she believed leadership meant giving orders, following policies, and making sure everyone followed the rules. She wasn't listening first.

About a decade later, a woman who had reported to her during those early supervisory years became one of her direct reports again. The first thing Christina did was apologize.

She acknowledged that she hadn't been a great supervisor and asked the woman to give her an opportunity to demonstrate how she'd grown. She also invited honest feedback. It was a vulnerable moment, particularly because the woman had firsthand experience with the leader Christina used to be.

Instead, she thanked her. Over time, their conversations confirmed that the woman was experiencing a different kind of leader. For Christina, that mattered. Her growth wasn't simply something she believed about herself. Someone who had experienced her leadership years earlier could see the difference.

Permission to Be Seen Through Women In Automotive

One of the things Christina values most about Women In Automotive is that it gave her permission to use her voice beyond the environment where she'd spent most of her career.

She feels valued at CDK and has been surrounded by women who have supported her growth. But WIA offered an opportunity to discover whether her experience could make a difference to people who didn't already know her. For years, Christina had believed she needed to have every answer before speaking up. Through WIA, she began recognizing that "you don't have to know everything to make a valuable contribution."

That belief was tested when she received a last-minute opportunity to speak at the WIA Social in Cincinnati. She had little time to prepare, but a leader believed in her ability and encouraged her to step forward. Christina accepted the opportunity, and afterward, women approached her to share how her story had touched them. Some asked for advice and mentorship.

One woman she met in Cincinnati later reached out before speaking at a WIA event in California. She wanted to know how Christina had prepared, how she'd felt, and what she'd learned. Christina shared her experience honestly, including the uncertainty and limited preparation time. After the event, she checked in to see how it had gone. The woman told her it had been more than she'd expected.

"Sometimes someone, and I was one of these people, needed another person to say, I see something in you, and I think you're capable of more, and that can change everything."

Christina was once that person. Now she's the woman another woman calls before taking her own leap.

Learning to Use Her Wings

Christina's father lives with her. After retiring, he discovered a passion for gardening and planted flowers around their home that attract butterflies. Christina admits she isn't particularly fond of caterpillars, but watching them nourish themselves, enter their cocoons, and eventually emerge has given her a new perspective on her own life.

"Where I'm at in my 50s, I feel like I'm just now becoming the butterfly," she says. "I'm just now learning how to flap my wings and experience the world."

She knows that stepping into something unfamiliar can be frightening. She's learning that it's possible to feel both fearless and scared at the same time. And at 53, Christina says she feels more beautiful than she did at 30, not because of her appearance, but because of the person she's becoming on the inside.

When she thinks about the 20-year-old receptionist who walked into a BMW dealership without a plan, Christina doesn't wish she'd made different choices. She'd encourage that young woman to be more confident in herself and remind her that she didn't need to know exactly where life would take her. She believes that young woman would be surprised by everything that's happened since, and she hopes she'd be proud.

"Slow down and enjoy the chapter that you're in," Christina says. "It doesn't have to define you because you can always write your next chapter and mistakes are okay."

Thirty years after she walked into automotive without a plan, Christina Hoyt isn't waiting to see where the industry, her career, or her life takes her next. Her wings may still feel new, but this time, she's choosing where to fly.

If Christina's story sounds like a chapter you're living right now, you don't have to write the next one alone. Join the Women In Automotive community at womeninautomotive.com and connect with women who recognize what you're capable of becoming.