General Motors has named Sterling Anderson to its newly created role of EVP global product and chief product officer effective June 2, the automaker announced Monday.
Anderson, who co-founded autonomous technology firm Aurora Innovation in December 2016 and served as its chief product officer, will oversee end-to-end product lifecycle for both gas and electric vehicles, including hardware, software, services and user experience, per GM’s press release.
"Sterling joins GM at a critical time as our industry continues to reinvent itself,” GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. “He brings decades of leadership in automotive engineering, tech start-ups, and software innovation.”
Anderson will remain at Aurora through the end of May, co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson said on a call with analysts last week.
Anderson will be based at GM’s Mountain View Tech Center in California and report to GM President Mark Reuss. Reuss said in a statement that Anderson’s decades of leadership in automotive engineering and transformative software makes him the right leader to help guide the automaker now and into the future.
“Our customers are expecting more from our vehicles than ever before,” Reuss said. “We have an opportunity to evolve the way we build from the ground up, with tighter integration between software and hardware, shorter development cycles, and an unwavering focus on a seamless customer experience.”
Anderson has extensive experience with autonomous technology. Aurora this month announced the launch of a self-driving truck service on public roads between Houston and Dallas.
Prior to joining Aurora, Anderson worked at Tesla, where he led both the Model X program and the team that delivered Autopilot.
During Aurora’s call with analysts, Anderson said deciding to leave the company he co-founded was one of the most difficult decisions he had ever made, but noted its product strategy is firmly established and that teams are in place to scale the technology.
In the automaker's announcement, Anderson said “GM has a deep heritage, bold vision, and the technical foundation to create products that millions of people love.”
“The world is at an inflection point,” he said. “Advances in foundational technologies have opened opportunities to revolutionize not just how we create products, but what those products can be and do.”
