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. Computer Science & Product, 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 Engineering, 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

Director of Safety

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

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.

Friederike
Reuter

Director of Expansion

WHAT DRIVES ME

Solving complex problems with ambitious and talented people who don’t accept the status quo. And having fun at the same time.

BACKGROUND

Political theorist turned economist turned venture builder. I hold degrees in economics from Harvard and Oxford, where I was a Rhodes Scholar, and spent a couple years as a consultant incubating and advising digital businesses at BCG.

Christian
Hertlein

Director of 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

Engineering Lead

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.

Vladimir
Bilonenko

Senior Engineering Manager

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.

Beatrice
Tîrziu

Software Engineer

WHAT DRIVES ME

The people around me. Seeing the team have such drive, determination and passion is unique and certainly contagious.

BACKGROUND

Having a B. Sc. and M. Sc. in Computer Science, I joined Vay as a Software Engineer in the company’s first months and early in my career. Still growing and learning together two years later.

 

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.

Anja
Rechtsteiner

Head 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 in leading communication agencies for 15 years 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.

Johanna
Loomis

Lead Industrial Designer

WHAT DRIVES ME

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

BACKGROUND

Industrial Designer and Team Lead at TEAMS Design GmbH for over six years, started as a Trainee in Shanghai, China. Worked as Industrial and Product Designer at Lothar Böhm Associates, Lutz Herrmann Design and Werksdesign. Completed the GROW Design Leadership & Management Training and is an IF-Award jury since 2022.

Meet Hans-Leo Ross, Director of Safety

Hans-Leo Ross – the grandfather of automotive safety with over 30 patents
Hans-Leo Ross
Hans-Leo Ross

Hans-Leo Ross has been working all of his professional life for the protection and safety of people and the environment. He is driven by providing safe and user-friendly automation systems for our future mobility needs. Hans-Leo has over 25 years of experience in system safety at Conti, Mando and Bosch. Moreover he led the VDA working group in Germany to create ISO 26262 and influenced worldwide safety standardization. He is also the author of several books on functional safety.

Why did you pursue a career in safety?

30 years ago, I started as a project engineer in the oil and gas industry. My first project was the automation of a train loading system for liquid gas. It requires knowledge about automation, measurement & control, power electric and operational safety. All my colleagues gave me good advice, but when our boss asked, who wants to be responsible for the project and lead it, they all said no, so I started my first safety project. I was fascinated by automation and innovation in transportation and 30 years later, I became somehow one of the grandfathers of automotive safety.

What was the most valuable experience that you had in your 30-year career?

There are so many, but two that stand out for my work at Vay include: 

Obtaining the first Automated Valet Parking L4 automotive application

From 2015 on during my time at Bosch, I was part of the team that successfully obtained the first level 4 automotive certification in the world. This project was a cooperation with the vehicle manufacturer Daimler. Automated valet parking (AVP) allows a vehicle to be left at a drop-off area of a parking garage which can sense and compute the route to a free parking spot. AVP emerged from various ideas and the understanding that urban automated mobility cannot be realized without an infrastructure. There was a lack of technical skills to be able to move a 2-tonne vehicle in close proximity to people. Therefore, we wanted to control the vehicles remotely by a safety-related control system, not a person. The major challenges came from behavioral law. When and on what events and information must the driving behavior of the remote-controlled car be regulated? What influence does the behavior have on actuators such as brakes, drive and steering? All of these behavioral patterns had to be learned and also transformed into driving dynamics decisions by the detection algorithms. We had to analyze the behavior of the different drivers in parking garages, starting with craftsmen working on ladders, people with transparent platform shoes, placing children in parking garages as they have different movement patterns than adults. It was an immense achievement from the team.

Secondly, leading the publication on international standards in automotive safety requirements 

The industry standard called ISO 26262 is the basic safety standard for electronics in the automotive industry. I led the German working group that developed this standard from 2004 on, during my time at Continental. It is now one of the most recognized and important standards in the industry and a benchmark of superior safety product development. The main challenge was to show the leading competence of the German automotive industry in terms of vehicle safety and synchronize all the German contributors to the standard.

Why did you decide to join Vay?

I spent many years working with TIER 1 suppliers in Germany, which provide major automotive solutions like Bosch, Continental, Mando. Since the market and the roles significantly changed in the last years, many of these players began to lose their position at the top of the industry because they couldn’t innovate as quickly as new mobility challengers & players like Waymo, Cariad, Nvidia and Broadcom entered the automotive market. In fact, the German automotive industry lost the lead position in the area of E-mobility and developing automated driving (AD) solutions. I was fascinated by Vay because this company provides the opportunity to develop new mobility solutions, where a lot of my knowledge and experiences could be used. Due to Automated Valet Parking (AVP) and other AD-projects, I published more than 30 patents in the area of connectivity and automated driving solutions.  

Why can teledriving be safer than autonomous driving?

Today, in dynamic scenes, humans are still superior to machines, even if they are controlled by well-trained Artificial Intelligence. It’s not just about the speed with which humans can grasp things and events in their environment, it’s also about how they can store such experiences in their memory, the brain. Humans not only grasp every traffic situation with one sense, they use all of their senses to grasp certain events. The danger patterns have often been stored in human genetics since primeval times, so that these patterns are recognized immediately and the human being reacts reflexively to risks in the environment, for example. Through training and experience, the prehistoric humans have already learned that when they hear the roar of a saber-toothed tiger, running away is no solution, but quickly climb a tree and wait for the tiger to leave, and warn the other humans by shouting. In other words, the awareness of the driver can also be specifically trained so that they can do the right thing reflexively. We will be looking for a long time for an AI with such awareness, and a seventh sense for risks in road traffic. Therefore, we train our teledrivers to drive with foresight so that we are not surprised by risks. Through their training, the teledrivers have practiced these risk scenarios and with their own traffic experience they can always design their driving style so defensively that we can actively avoid accidents. Thanks to the teledriving approach, we can very well combine today’s well-known assistance functions and also tried-and-tested autonomous driving functions with state of the art artificial intelligence. With these measures, we can also continuously evolve with developments and adapt the security level accordingly to the growing requirements.

How are you implementing a culture of safety at Vay?

Safety is one of the core competencies at Vay. Safety has to be within the culture and is not a result of the work of just a few people. We embrace the safety challenges as a company and work hard on always finding the safest solutions to all challenges.  If someone has a Vay business card, everyone should know that they have a safety professional in front of them.

What kind of people would you like to join Vay?

We need team players who want to change the current approach of the automotive industry, and are eager to develop safer, more ecological and more efficient mobility solutions. They must be motivated for continuous improvement and learning skills. Their target must be to develop best-in-class safety technology.

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