Brockman also stepped down as chairman, a company spokesman said.
A Reynolds spokesman did not respond to questions about whether Brockman has any daily management role and what, if anything, this change portends for Brockman’s ownership stake in the company he bought 14 years ago.
“I am both humbled and excited by the opportunity to lead this company,” Barras said in the announcement Friday. “I have the benefit of the most talented senior executive leadership team with decades of automotive experience to lean on."
Last month, federal prosecutors in San Francisco announced that a federal grand jury returned a 39-count indictment charging Brockman with tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering, and other alleged offenses.
Prosecutors have presented a portrait of Brockman of operating a secret web of Caribbean business entities to conceal $2 billion in investment income, evading taxes on the income. The charges comprise what is said to be the largest prosecution of its kind in U.S. history.
Recently, Bloomberg reported that Swiss prosecutors froze more than $1 billion in bank accounts belonging to Brockman
Brockman, a resident of Texas and Colorado, has a history of being an aggressive, successful businessman who has made bold moves.
In 2006, the then-65-year-old entrepreneur ran Universal Computer Systems, a Houston company he started in his living room more than three decades before, when he took over what was then a much larger competitor, Dayton-based Reynolds and Reynolds Co., in a $2.8 billion deal.
In their indictment last month, prosecutors said a Brockman subsidiary, Dealer Computer Services Inc., borrowed $2.4 billion to finance the merger of Universal Computer Systems and Reynolds, paving the way to his ownership of the local company.
Barras, 61, is a long-time company executive who joined Reynolds in 1976, Reynolds said. He was named a company officer over software development in 1988 and has held the position of executive vice president of software development since 2008. In June, Barras was named president and COO.
Barras will retain those titles along with his CEO role, the local company said.
Reynolds is based on a Miami Valley Research Park campus near County Line Road in Kettering, where it has more than 1,000 employees.
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