After years of low-profile operation, laser radar manufacturer Luminar and its founder Austin Russell entered the field of driverless cars. Today, Luminar has joined two prominent executives, marking its growing ambitions in the development and deployment of driverless cars.
On Thursday, Luminar announced the appointment of Fitbit executives Bill Zerella and Tami Rosen as the company’s chief financial officer and chief manpower officer. Both of them have years of work experience in their respective fields. Zerella spent four years as a CFO at FitBit, and previously held positions at several other companies, including wireless communications company Vocera, Force10 Networks, and telecom equipment company Infinera.
His specialty is to help start-ups expand their revenues and complete higher-volume hardware and software products. He also helped these companies carry out IPOs. During his tenure at Fitbit, Zerella was responsible for the largest consumer electronics IPO in history.
Rosen also has long-term green laser pointer experience and rich results in human resources. She spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs and also served as senior human resources director at Apple.
Rosen relies heavily on its vast experience in the emergence of a large number of companies in the field of driverless technology, which are competing for a limited pool of talent. She told foreign media that Luminar wants to complete expansion and future travel transformation plans, and human resources are the cornerstone.
“First, you need to pay attention to how you build a strong corporate culture that is inclusive, motivating, and the key to achieving your goals,” Rosen said. Lidar can generate a high-precision 3D map of the car’s periphery through laser ranging. Many car manufacturers and technology companies believe that laser radar is an important factor in the safe promotion of driverless cars.
Russell believes that most companies mistakenly focus on lowering prices, and instead insisting on improving radar performance is what they should do. And this is also the starting point for Luminar.
The company built its own green laser pointer radar from scratch, and this long process ultimately gave a simpler design and better performance. Today the company is reducing its costs through smart engineering and mass production.
This is where Zerella and Rosen can work. Russell already has its own technology. The company has three offices, a total of 400 employees, and completed a strategic acquisition of Black Forest Engineering. It also has established cooperation with Toyota Research Institute and Volvo. Luminar has a 136,000 platform foot manufacturing center in Orlando, Florida.