Volvo Cars has named Odgard Andersson CEO of its newly formed autonomous drive software development company, Zenseact, the automaker said Wednesday.
It is Andersson’s second big promotion in the last 18 months. The previous one came in May 2019 when she succeeded Atif Rafiq as Volvo’s chief digital officer.
Andersson, 48, joined Volvo in 2016 from Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson executive, where she spent 20 years and where her focus was on transforming the telecom industry from hardware to software-oriented development.
Starting next month she takes responsibility for a company formed from the pieces of Volvo and supplier Veoneer’s former automotive software joint venture, Zenuity.
Under the terms of the breakup, Zenuity has become a holding company for the intellectual property that the partners co-developed. Zenseact and Veoneer have equal rights to use that technology.
As part of the agreement, Zenseact absorbed 600 of Zenuity’s 800 people. They are based in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Shanghai, China, Volvo said.
Although Zenseact is wholly owned by Volvo, the company is free to work with other automakers, which was also the case with Zenuity.
Veoneer’s part of Zenuity, which was integrated into the Swedish technology supplier, will focus on development and commercialization of advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) software. The supplier received IP licenses and added about 200 software engineers, located in Germany, the U.S. and Sweden, Veoneer said.
Volvo and Veoneer first announced their plans to split up Zenuity in April.
