Laura Major was named president and CEO of Motional in June 2025.|Credit: MotionalAutonomous car company Motional today named Laura Major president and CEO.
Major was designated by Motional’& rsquo; s Board of Directors following a successful period as CTO.
The announcement comes as Motional prepares to introduce its driverless commercial service in 2026.
Major has functioned as Motional’& rsquo; s interim CEO considering that September 2024 when she took control of for Karl Iagnemma, who stepped down.
Iagnemma is now CEO of Vecna Robotics, a provider of warehouse automation systems.
Major has actually been CTO of Motional since the business’& rsquo; s beginning in 2020.
As CTO, she led the engineering group to establish one of the world’& rsquo; s initially fully driverless cars to be accredited by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, the IONIQ 5 robotaxi, and created a machine learning-first autonomous driving software stack.
Prior to Motional, Major developed a range of autonomy and AI solutions at Draper Laboratory and Aria Insights, consisting of astronaut and national security applications.
She is likewise an accomplished author, and co-wrote What to Expect When You’& rsquo; re Expecting Robots: The Future of Human-Robot Collaboration.“& ldquo; In collaboration with Hyundai, we’& rsquo; re bringing embodied AI to transportation and introducing substantial social benefits,” & rdquo; said Major.
& ldquo; Leveraging our deep know-how in building fully driverless systems and our dexterity in understanding the current AI breakthroughs, we are highly positioned to open a future where safe autonomous automobiles are a practical part of daily life.”& rdquo; MassRobotics co-founder Joyce Sidopoulos (left) and Motional president & & CEO Laura Major at the 2025 Robotics Summit Women in Robotics Breakfast.Major was the featured speaker for the Women in Robotics Breakfast at the 2025 Robotics Summit & & Expo, which is produced by The Robot Report.
She started her career as a cognitive engineer for Draper Laboratory, where she combined her psychology and engineering skills to create decision-making assistance gadgets for U.S.
astronauts and soldiers.
After 12 years with the business, she worked as department leader for the Information and Cognition Division.During this time Major was acknowledged by the Society of Women Engineers as an emerging leader in 2014.
She likewise hung out at Aria Insights, Inc.
(previously called CyPhy Works), a U.S.-based drone maker that specialized in developing extremely sophisticated drones.
She worked as VP of engineering, and after that CTO, dealing with the development of autonomous drones.Major is a graduate of Georgia Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.The post Motional names Laura Major president, CEO of autonomous car company appeared first on The Robot Report.