Carvana was one of the pandemic era’s biggest corporate winners. As consumers embraced online car buying and used-car prices surged, the company became a market darling and a symbol of digital disruption. By 2022, it had hit a wall.
Interest rates were rising, used-car demand was weakening, and financing was getting more expensive. Carvana, which had been expanding rapidly for years and had prepared for another big growth year, suddenly found itself under severe pressure. Its stock collapsed 99% from its peak, and analysts questioned whether it would survive.
For Christina Keiser, Carvana’s executive vice president of strategy, the period tested whether the company could block out the noise and focus on the work at hand. The lesson she draws from that stretch is ruthless focus, she tells Fortune.
As she describes it, Carvana had been on an upward climb and reached a point where it believed it could add resources across the organization, take on more initiatives, and push on many fronts at once. The pressures of 2022 forced a different discipline. Leadership had to define the few priorities that mattered most, assign resources accordingly, and put other ambitions aside.
Carvana grounded itself first in the customer. Even as the market narrative deteriorated, customers continued to respond positively to the buying experience the company had built. That gave the leadership team confidence that the core service still had real value.
From there, the work became intensely operational. Carvana organized its recovery around a three-step plan: return to positive adjusted EBITDA, demonstrate significantly positive unit economics, and grow again. Leadership broke a large profitability gap into a few dozen specific operating targets, assigned an owner to each one, and tracked them weekly.
Carvana also secured a pivotal 2023 debt exchange that reduced total debt by more than $1.3 billion, extended maturities, and lowered near-term cash interest expense, buying the company more time to execute its operating plan.
That framework made progress visible inside the company. Teams could see underlying metrics improving in real time, from lower transport distances to better logistics efficiency and other operational gains that would later translate into profitability. Investors would not see those changes until quarterly results, but inside Carvana, those early wins helped sustain confidence that the turnaround was taking hold.
Keiser says internal communication mattered, too. Leaders reminded employees that sharp drawdowns and intense skepticism are often part of building something ambitious. The moment also tapped into a much older instinct inside the company. “We were back in that position of being the underdog, of being questioned,” she says.
The moment also raised the bar for what counted as a priority. Projects with long-term promise but no compelling immediate rationale were pushed aside. Keiser points to efforts that might have created value down the road, including ideas around repeat customers or broader brand benefits, but did not address the company’s immediate needs. The emphasis shifted to the work most closely tied to profitability, operational stability, and the core customer experience.
On the 2025 Fortune 500, Carvana ranked No. 314, a 169-spot jump from its 2021 debut, and it reported record revenue of $20.3 billion for fiscal year 2025. For Keiser, who joined Carvana in 2016, coming through on the other side affirms the company’s resilience. “We don’t need validation day to day,” she says. “We’re very comfortable being the underdog and sort of saying, ‘We’ve got something to prove.’”
Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
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