Aurora Innovation has announced that it has hired Ossa Fisher as president, as the autonomous vehicle company prepares to commercially launch its self-driving truck business next year.
According to the company, Fisher, who most recently served as president and COO of edtech company Istation, will be based in Dallas. Aurora is headquartered in Pittsburgh with offices in San Francisco and Mountain View, but its self-driving truck testing and operations are in the Dallas area.
Aurora Innovation was founded in 2017 by Sterling Anderson, Drew Bagnell, and Chris Urmson., three veterans of the nascent world of autonomous vehicle technology who previously worked at Tesla, Uber and the self-driving project of Google (now Waymo), respectively. Urmson is CEO, Anderson is chief product officer and Bagnell is chief scientist.
According to a company spokesperson, lFisher's experience in starting and running a business venture will make up for the more technical background of Aurora's three founders.
The contracting occurs approximately one year before the commercial launch scheduled for the end of 2024.
Aurora has several pilot programs with clients like FedEx, Schneider, and Uber Freight, all of which are "for a fee.". However, Aurora does not recognize them as business revenue, instead payments from the pilot programs are used to offset the company's R&D expenses. What it does report each quarter is "partnership income," as part of its partnership with Toyota.
Aurora Innovation declared in November that it had enough money to continue developing its autonomous vehicle technology until its commercial launch.. The company closed the third quarter with about $1.200 billion in cash and short-term investments.
The company is expected to present its fourth quarter results on February 15.
