Shaping the future of safe autonomous mobility

Reinhard Ploss has been a member of the Management Board of Infineon Technologies AG since 2007 (mandated until 31 December 2022). He has been CEO since October 1, 2012. Reinhard Ploss was born on December 8, 1955, in Bamberg. He studied process engineering at the Technical University of Munich and received his doctorate in 1990. He began his career at Infineon in 1986 (Siemens AG until 1999).

As a leader in automotive technologies, Michelle Avary has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the mobility space and has devoted her career in establishing better infrastructures for automotive, autonomous, IoT, and connectivity platforms. At the WEF, Michelle oversees a team and portfolio of initiatives aimed to ensure road transit is safe, clean, and inclusive. The works span defining what is a safe autonomous vehicle, ensuring mobility is inclusive to all including women, elderly, rural populations, and people of color.

Since joining Arm as one of its first employees, Simon played a key role in developing industry standards, and his engineering work led to him being granted several embedded-systems patents. He became vice president of engineering in 2001, and before being named as Arm CEO in July 2013, he held several other strategy positions including global head of sales. He was personally responsible for expanding the company’s U.S. business and strengthening its leadership and relationships in California’s Silicon Valley.

Counting on more than 20 years of experience with innovative, new technologies in auto electronics and sensor technology, Frank Petznik is currently the Executive Vice President of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) at Continental. Prior to this role, Frank worked at Hella GmbH & Co. KGaA. As a member of the Electronics Executive Board, he took over the global responsibility for Hella’s Automated Driving and implemented one comprehensive strategy combining several product families

Thomas Müller is Vice President for development chassis, ADAS and autonomous driving at Audi. After working for Mercedes Benz in Brazil, he started his career at Audi in 2001. He worked in the R&D department, headed the braking, steering and driver assistance systems, and “piloted driving”. In November 2016, he was appointed VP for chassis development, taking over in 2018 further responsibility for ADAS and autonomous driving. Since January 2020, Thomas Müller also acts as Executive VP for ADAS and Autonomous Driving in the Car Software Organisation.

Young Sohn serves as President and Chief Strategy Officer for Samsung Electronics, and Chairman of the board of HARMAN. He leads Samsung’s strategy for global innovation, investment and new business creation. Young led the $8 billion acquisition of HARMAN. Before joining Samsung, Young served on the boards of Arm, Cymer, and others. Under his leadership, he took PLX Technologies, Synnex Technologies and Inphi public. Mr. Sohn also co-founded the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC), the world’s largest startup competition addressing global challenges.

As CTO at Motional, Laura Major leads hundreds of engineers in the development of revolutionary driverless technology systems. A graduate of the MIT, she has had a long career developing autonomous solutions across robotics, aerial and space applications. Laura is also an accomplished writer and co-author of the book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration”.

Lars Reger is executive vice president and chief technology officer for NXP Semiconductors. He is responsible for managing new business activities, R & D in automotive, industry 4.0, the internet of things (IoT), mobile and connectivity & infrastructure. Prior to joining NXP as CTO of the automotive division in 2008, he was responsible for business development and product management within Continental’s connectivity business unit. In December 2018, Lars was appointed NXP’s CTO and has since then been responsible for the technology portfolio of NXP.

Dr. Trent Victor is Director of Safety Research and Best Practices at Waymo. He oversees safety research to support safety evaluations and strategic initiatives; provides his expertise in the areas of collision data analysis, collision causation, injury severity assessments, and naturalistic driving data research and analysis. He coordinates the development of best practices and external industry standard setting groups. Prior to Waymo, Trent was Senior Technical Leader at Volvo, Adjunct Professor in Driver Behavior at Chalmers and at University of Iowa.

Dr. Sagar Behere is the Director of Systems and Safety Engineering at Aurora Inc. In this role, he leads Aurora's rigorous engineering efforts to deliver a safe and highly performant autonomous driving system. Prior to Aurora, Dr. Behere has engaged in development of highly automated driving technology for Toyota, Zoox, Volvo, and Scania. He holds a PhD in Reference Architectures for Highly Automated Driving from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Shinichi Yoshioka serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Renesas. He was appointed this role in August 2019, thanks to his experience and in-depth technological expertise of the products and the market of Renesas. Prior to his appointment as the CTO, Mr. Yoshioka was also the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Automotive Solution Business Unit in 2018, contributing to the growth of the Automotive Business for Renesas Electronics.

CEO and Co-Founder of Virgin Hyperloop, Josh Giegel is leading a world-class team of engineers making hyperloop a reality. In November 2020, Josh made history becoming one of the first passengers in the world to ride on a hyperloop. He is leading the development of paradigm shifting electromagnetic, high power, autonomous technology, bridging the engineering work with unparalleled passenger experience and working at the highest levels of government to develop a regulatory framework for hyperloop technology.

Edzard Overbeek is CEO of leading location services provider, HERE Technologies. With decades of sales technology experience, Overbeek’s career maps the globe, holding leadership positions at Fujitsu, Siemens and Cisco Systems. Before taking HERE’s helm, Overbeek led Cisco’s Global Services organization, responsible for over $12 billion in revenues. In 2016, Overbeek became CEO of HERE Maps, which has since transformed into HERE Technologies. The company helps democratize global mobility, envisioning to enable an autonomous world for everyone.

A serial entrepreneur, professor and investor, Martin Varsavsky founded eight companies in the United States and Europe in the last 30 years. He is the CEO of Goggo Network, an Axel Springer/Softbank backed startup that helps to develop the legal and engineering framework for fleets of autonomous vehicles. In 2017, Martin also founded Overture Life, a company devoted to the automation of the embryology lab, which makes him a leading entrepreneur in the field of human fertility.

Dr. Markus Heyn has been a member of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH since April 2015. He bears responsibility for mobility solutions sales and marketing worldwide. Dr. Heyn is also responsible for the Automotive Aftermarket and Connected Mobility Solutions divisions, as well as the subsidiaries ETAS GmbH and Bosch Engineering GmbH, which includes the cross-divisional Commercial Vehicle & Off-Road organization. In addition, he bears regional responsibility for North and South America as well as business in Japan and South Korea.

Benedikt Wolfers is a founding partner of POSSER SPIETH WOLFERS & PARTNERS (pswp), a law firm specialized in national and international regulation for different industries, notably automotive, energy, finance and infrastructure. He has been engaged for many years in the design and approval process for SAE L3 and 4 systems and the development of homologation and road traffic law. He is advising OEMs, semiconductors, tier 1 companies in Europe and the US and has long-standing experience with national and international regulatory bodies and governments.

Christoph Hartung took over as chairman of the Board of Management of ETAS GmbH on January 1, 2021. Hartung has been with Bosch since January 2020 and held the role of Executive Vice President of the Connected Mobility Solutions division. He holds an academic degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Science and a Master of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. He started his career with various automakers, including Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.