Thomas
von der Ohe

Co-Founder, CEO

WHAT DRIVES ME

You come across an opportunity to positively impact societies around the globe maybe once in your lifetime. An opportunity to truly make a difference. Our unique approach to autonomous driving gives us this chance: redefining how people move in a better way. Building and shipping a product with this great team is what drives me day and night.

BACKGROUND

Launched Zoox’ first self-driving vehicle on public streets as leading Technical Program Manager in Silicon Valley, launched Amazon’s first Echo as leading Technical Program Manager on Device Software, Founded two (funded) mobility companies. M. Sc. Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University.

Fabrizio
Scelsi

Co-Founder, VP Engineering

WHAT DRIVES ME

Building products together with an amazing team based on cutting-edge technology to serve a greater purpose and solve problems – for the people, for our planet.

BACKGROUND

Manager of an engineering team in Silicon Valley to build autonomous shuttles, built teams and various mobility products: electric race cars, e-motorcycles, light electric vehicles, electric passenger vehicles, including one of the most successful electric delivery vehicles in Germany. RWTH Aachen, Imperial College London.

Bogdan
Djukic

Co-founder, Director Teledrive Experience

WHAT DRIVES ME

Vay is aiming to launch the first vehicle without a safety driver on public roads in Europe. This involves exciting engineering challenges, many of which have never been worked on before, ranging from autonomous vehicle technology, cybersecurity, backend, machine learning and safety-critical SW. Coming up with engineering solutions to these topics is something that I’m super excited to work on at Vay.

BACKGROUND

Team Lead at Microsoft, Senior Software Engineer at Skype. M. Sc. in Computer Science from Belgrade University.

Mariona
Bosch

Director of Engineering Operations

WHAT DRIVES ME

Working closely with people from different cultures and professional backgrounds (hardware, software, operations, etc.) gives me the chance to learn new ways of approaching projects, structuring teams, and setting up processes every day. The results of this incredible teamwork are hugely rewarding, and visible in each step of our product.

BACKGROUND

Part of the management circle at AUDI AG, responsible for the implementation of prototypes at early development stages of new products (innovation vehicles, concept and pre-series vehicles, show cars, design models, testing single parts, PoCs, 3D-printing)

Hans-Leo
Ross

Safety Advisor

WHAT DRIVES ME

All my professional life I have been working for the protection and safety of people and the environment. I want to further provide safe and user-friendly automation systems for our future mobility needs.

BACKGROUND

25+ years experience in system safety at Conti., Mando, Bosch. Led the VDA working group in Germany to create ISO 26262 and influenced worldwide safety standardization. Author of several text books on functional safety.

Justin
Spratt

VP - Business & Corporate Development

WHAT DRIVES ME

What drives me is to work on goals that have a big impact on society. Additionally, I wanted to work with the smartest and most innovative people in the tech world. That’s better at Vay than any other company I’ve spoken to recently.

BACKGROUND

Responsible for global strategic partnerships at Uber, where he focused on deals with automotive OEMs, vehicle fleet operators, vehicle battery technology companies and electrification infrastructure providers. Was CEO and chief growth officer at Quirk. Began his professional life at Morgan Stanley as a fixed income trader after studying economics and finance. Built the first startup incubator in Africa in 2002 and has been mentoring founders of technology startups for over ten years. He is an angel investor in software technology and holds board positions in some of these companies.

Anja
Rechsteiner

Director of Communications

WHAT DRIVES ME

What drives me is to start something from scratch and use all my experience to find the best way to communicate our exciting story. I believe my work can have an impact on how people feel about more sustainable transportation options.

BACKGROUND

Worked for 15 years in leading communication agencies such as fischerAppelt and Ketchum in Germany and the UK for various brands and companies from FMCG to travel to mobility. Holds an MBA in Communication & Leadership from Quadriga University as well as a Master degree in History, Sociology and Media & Art Studies from University of Constance.

Caleb
Varner

US General Manager

WHAT DRIVES ME

We’re close to letting users experience the Vay Magic for the first time in Las Vegas and I know that they are going to find it a compelling mix of great value powered by a super slick in-app experience. It’s awesome to have the opportunity to take this piece of underlying tech (remote driving) and build an experience around it that users will use, love and tell their friends about.

BACKGROUND

Co-founded and served as the Global General Manager of Uber Rent & Valet, a new mobility investment by Uber. Lead the Global Vehicles team at Uber, overseeing critical planning and P&L responsibilities. Built Uber’s vehicles business in Latin America from the ground and managed the customer-facing financial services business across Sub-Saharan Africa. Lead international financial services strategy engagements with the Boston Consulting Group for John Deere, focusing on regions like Brazil, Africa, and India. Owns a Masters of Business Administration of Duke University.

Christian
Hertlein

VP - Product Design and Brand

WHAT DRIVES ME

Building the future of mobility, which is sustainable and truly serving the needs of people, by creating a holistic experience, a relatable brand and shaping services that are going to make a difference to how we move within and between cities.

BACKGROUND

Head of Global Design at N26, Senior Lead Designer at IDEO, in-car interactions for Volkswagen.

David
Gossow

Senior Principal Software Engineer

WHAT DRIVES ME

After having worked in autonomous robotics research for a long time in the Silicon Valley, I am thrilled to be working at a company that is finally bringing this technology into people’s everyday lives.

BACKGROUND

Tech Lead at Google Tango in Mountain View, Research Engineer at Willow Garage, yoga instructor since 2018.

Johanna
Loomis

Lead Industrial Designer

WHAT DRIVES ME

What drives me at Vay is the enthusiasm and passion for a vision that is embedded in the company culture, and at the same time the strict discipline in its implementation.

BACKGROUND

Industrial Product Design Lead at TEAMS DESIGN GmbH for over six years, started as a Trainee in Shanghai City. Worked as Industrial and Product Designer at LOTHAR BOHM ASSOCIATES LIMITED, Lutz Herrmann Design, Indeed Innovation and Werksdesign.

Vladimir
Bilonenko

Director of Software Engineering

WHAT DRIVES ME

Helping engineers to do their best and most important work. Elegance in software. Bringing ideas from books to real life and from one domain to another. Going from A to B fast.

BACKGROUND

Software Generalist. Maps and Mobility Geek (Lon, Lat not Lat, Lon). High Load at Yandex, Geo Analytics and Last Mile at HERE Maps, Mobility Platform at Daimler. Conway’s Law Enthusiast.

ALINA
PRESTI

Teledriver

WHAT DRIVES ME

A car enthusiast, driven by cars, driving and technology.

BACKGROUND

Nursery school teacher. Driver at Skoda’s start-up Caredriver.

Stefano
Buzzanca

Head of Operations

WHAT DRIVES ME

What drives me at Vay is the magic. That daily feeling that every small step forward, every single improvement, every small success is a step towards the final goal: to create something unique that will change the lives of many.

BACKGROUND

His 20+ years of experience in various mobility companies make him a great leader and KPI driven operator at Vay. Launched and ran various mobility services in 16+ cities, focused on free-floating car-sharing.

Deep Dive: How Design shapes the Future of a Tech-driven Product (Part 3)

By Johanna Loomis, Lead Industrial Designer

Service Becomes a Natural Ingredient of the Industrial Design Process and Vice Versa

In the past, Industrial Design and Product Development relied on integrating eternally improving functional features to prevail in the market until the competition caught up. That process was fine for a long period of time. Now, I think these times are over. Mere “higher, faster, further” doesn’t work anymore.

“Higher, Faster, Further” is Not Enough

On the one side because of the amount of product alternatives and competitors on the market, as well as the high level of innovations set by young pushy start-ups. On the other side the customer expectations for personalization, convenience and immediacy have risen sharply. Implementing only a new feature would not address these requirements.

Service providers are expected to offer product solutions, but Industrial Designers and Product Developers are also expected to offer a service with the purchase of a physical Item. It seems that user centricity and the combination of both business fields are the key to a successful product/service launch nowadays.

New Chances to Create a Holistic Brand Strategy

Industrial design is increasingly influencing service design processes and vice versa. The processes have quite similar approaches, encompassing the four key activities: Research, Ideation, Prototyping and Implementation. So why not leverage the synergy of the two worlds of creativity?

Industrial Designers by nature have an interface position, and in this case we are building bridges to sales perspectives and trying to find beneficial service features for the user that are not necessarily physical, but work holistically within the strategic design concepts. It’s a great opportunity for Industrial Designers to expand their scope of work, the iterative design process, but most importantly their sphere of influence.

Examples

Some examples to explain what the results could be if these two business areas fusion:

  1. Bosch, originally a classic hardware developer, is transforming it´s Smarthome series into a “connected business” and is offering a “Help Connect” button in its App. An emergency call system that, for €4.99 a month, informs the responsible service provider when water damage, fire, or burglary threatens your beloved home, when you are not there. This is just one of the subscription models with which Bosch is increasingly becoming a service provider instead of earning money exclusively with their devices (Source).
  2. Even the established company Ikea planned to bring office furniture rental by m2 to the German market with the office furniture start-up Nornorm (Source).
  3. But it also works the other way around, widely known is Amazon’s Echo. It is offering a physical device that provides quick access to company services.

How Vay Handles this Development

Meeting customer needs is Vay’s USP. To manage the development from the ground up, the UX Design Team at Vay has influence on different departments and the company culture. UX Designers at Vay are for a example a part of the End-Customer domain and co-develop Service Concepts (e.g. ODD) and support empirical target group identification with UX research methods.

Reading several Trend Reports, it becomes clear that renting instead of owning and fee-based additional services are becoming a big topic in the mobility and transportation sector. All-round carefree packages are booming.

Teledrivers are our employees, therefore no pay-features are expected on Teledriver side, we want to offer our employees the best possible and safest experience and have e.g. configured the support of visual AR overlays to increase warnings for e.g. cyclists by default. Teledrivers have the opportunity to express their wishes in regular surveys and UX-testings then determine the priorities according to which improvements can be introduced.

For the end user though, who books the car-sharing service, we can offer added value on top depending on customer request.

For example, we could offer a login without a smartphone, save individual mood interior settings.

These kinds of offerings are being developed together as a team of UX and Service Designers. With the common goal in mind of building a seamless positive brand experience across multiple platforms.(See the first articles: Design-driven culture benefits all & Designers gain Influence in highly complex environments)

Related Stories

From Idea to Reality: How to Create a Smooth Customer Experience

Safety First? The Role of Cybersecurity at Vay

Deep Dive: How Design shapes the Future of a Tech-driven Product (Part 2)