Richard L. Sharp

Richard L. Sharp was CEO of Circuit City Stores when he backed 'Project X' in 1991, betting that Circuit City's big-box retail systems could transform used-car retailing. He provided the capital and corporate support to open the first CarMax in Richmond, Virginia in 1993, oversaw the 1997 CarMax tracking stock and the 2002 spin-off, and served as CarMax chairman until 2007. Sharp died in 2014.

Richard L. Sharp was the Circuit City chief executive who conceived CarMax as an internal venture. In the early 1990s he pushed his team to find a new retail category where Circuit City's strengths in inventory management, point-of-sale systems, and customer service could be applied. Strategist Austin Ligon led the study and the team chose used cars, a fragmented market with no trusted national brand. The resulting 'CarMax' concept combined large selection, fixed prices, inspected vehicles, and salespeople paid a flat amount per car. The first store opened in Richmond in September 1993. CarMax eventually outgrew its parent and was spun off as an independent NYSE company on October 1, 2002; Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in November 2008 and was liquidated in 2009.