Ford: Autonomic realigns executive team to position for growth

Poised for significant growth, Autonomic, the creator of the Transportation Mobility Cloud™ and a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Smart Mobility, has realigned its leadership team, officially confirming Gavin Sherry as Chief Executive Officer.

The Transportation Mobility Cloud™ is the first open cloud-based platform that connects the diverse components of urban mobility systems, including connected vehicles, mass transit, pedestrians, city infrastructure and service providers — with the goal of orchestrating a safer, more efficient and sustainable transportation network.

“Our goal is to be the foremost connected mobility cloud globally, and I’m excited for the opportunity to power and pave the way for future cities,” said Gavin Sherry, co-founder, and CEO of Autonomic. “By uniting all connected vehicles on a single platform, along with other transport agencies, cities, and developers, the possibilities of how we can advance and synchronize transportation and mobility are endless.”

Previously leading Autonomic’s innovation as co-founder and Vice President of Engineering, Sherry is now responsible for spurring the growth and adoption of the Transportation Mobility Cloud™, while Autonomic’s former CEO and now Vice President of Ford X, a part of Ford Smart Mobility LLC, Sundeep (Sunny) Madra will serve as a board member and advisor.

“As cities look to improve transportation options and increase livability for their citizens, enhancing mobility is key to meeting this challenge. Gavin is the right leader to take Autonomic to the next stage of growth and ensure the TMC  becomes the foremost platform that developers and automakers use to deliver their mobility goals,” says Madra.

Autonomic’s executive team hails from Amazon Web Services, Pivotal, Proofpoint (NASDAQ PFPT), Greenplum (acquired by EMC) and Xtreme Labs (acquired by Pivotal). The team has a track record of delivering large-scale, high impact cloud and distributed systems and several executives were instrumental in building the first version of Amazon Web Services, and leading consumer, open source and cloud software.

Now, the team is taking a similar approach to creating a transportation platform at a scale that paves the way for all developers and automakers, in addition to Ford, to build on the Transportation Mobility Cloud™.

As part of Sherry’s appointment into the role of CEO, Autonomic’s executive leadership is elevating to further meet the needs of the industry and the company’s partners which include auto manufacturers, developers, parts suppliers and fleet operators. The executive team consists of:

Gavin Sherry, CEO
Sherry has more than 20 years of experience in data processing, machine learning and engineering large-scale Internet systems globally and will advance the company’s vision of accelerating the transformation of the transportation industry. Previously, Sherry served as Autonomic’s Vice President of Engineering. Prior to Autonomic, Sherry served as the Vice President of Engineering at Pivotal, where he was instrumental in the development of the company’s big data suite, which brought significant data warehousing and analytics to the cloud for enterprise. Leveraging his experience building open source software and data processing technologies, Sherry went on to co-found Autonomic in August of 2016 with fellow Pivotal alums Sunny Madra, Nithin Rao, Amar Varma, and Benjamin Black.

Benjamin Black, CTO
Prior to Autonomic, Black held senior technology roles at Pivotal, Microsoft and Amazon, and was an early Amazon employee who co-wrote the paper that would become Amazon Web Services. In addition, Black worked at Microsoft where he helped build Office 365, its answer to Google Apps, and prior to that founded a startup called Boundary, which monitored computer networks.

Amar Varma, COO
A co-founder of Xtreme Labs with Madra, Varma has 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor in high profile technology companies.

Julie Davies, General Counsel
Davies has over a decade of experience advising public and private companies, venture capitalists and corporate investors in matters arising during every stage of a company’s lifecycle. Prior to Autonomic, she was a partner in the Palo Alto office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP.

Caleb Welton, Vice President of Engineering
Welton has worked in data processing and machine learning his entire career. He led the development of MADlib, an open-source scale-out machine learning library. Prior to that, he was a key member of the Greenplum Database team (acquired by EMC).

Nithin Rao, Vice President of Product Management
With over 20 years of experience combining business, technology and product strategy, Rao is a technology veteran. Prior to Autonomic, he was a key member of the product teams at Pivotal and Proofpoint.

Sunny Madra, Board Member
Madra co-founded Autonomic and served as CEO until Ford Smart Mobility acquired it in February 2018, and also co-founded Xtreme Labs (acquired by Pivotal in 2013). He is currently Vice President, Ford X at Ford Motor Company and is an experienced entrepreneur, investor and technologist.

Expanding Talent in Silicon Valley and Detroit
In addition to growing its team in Silicon Valley, Autonomic is also building a team in Detroit, investing in the community’s local talent and focusing on core vehicle connectivity and mobility problems.

In addition, the company aims to expand the reach of the Transportation Mobility Cloud™ by establishing partnerships with additional OEMs, and introducing more developers to the platform.

Autonomic is positioned to be the foremost connected vehicle cloud globally, advancing the entire transportation industry’s evolution towards synchronicity.

To find out more about joining the team, visit autonomic.ai/careers.

About Autonomic
Autonomic is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Smart Mobility and is set to usher in a new era of connected vehicles and transform how people move around cities. As the creator of the world’s foremost transportation and mobility platform for connected vehicles — the Transportation Mobility Cloud — Autonomic gives car makers and developers the infrastructure to build customer experiences for connected vehicles..To learn more about Autonomic, go to: autonomic.ai