OUR JURY
Dragos Maciuca
Technical Director, Ford
Dragos Maciuca is the Technical Director & Senior Technical Leader at Ford’s Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto. He is an experienced engineer and management professional, with more than 15 years of professional experience in Silicon Valley spanning a breadth of industries including automotive (BMW and Nissan), consumer electronics (Apple), semiconductor manufacturing (KLA-Tencor) and aerospace (Lockheed Martin). He has extensive experience advising start-ups, developing and commercializing products, collaborating with universities and leading cross-functional teams. Dragos holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from the Haas School of Business.
Pierre-Antoine Beaudoin
Deep Learning & AI Startup Business Manager, NVIDIA
Pierre-Antoine obtained a Finance and Marketing Major applied to new technologies and innovation. After a BA in Economics at Paris II, he joined ICN Nancy for a Master in Marketing and CSR in Technology. Pierre-Antoine held several positions in Marketing and PR within large multinational companies such as Lenovo, Intel and now NVIDIA. He will share its insights on tech trends and market opportunities. Today, he focuses on creating synergies between startups, universities, research centers and business operations. Passionate about innovation and technologies, he’s a big Star Wars fan, a long time skier and a father of one.
Josh Berg
Director of Innovation, Magna
Josh Berg joined Magna in April, 2019. He currently holds the role as Director of Innovation Ventures at Magna International. Prior to joining Magna, Berg started his journey at General Motors as a public policy manager for legislative and regulatory issues in the area of telematics and connected technologies. At Magna, they invest directly into startups and strategically focused venture capital funds. They are open for partnership and pride themselves on “auto qualifying” technology to help bring your concept to market.
Jim Misener
Senior Director – Senior Director, Product Management
Jim Misener is Senior Director, Product Management and the Global V2X Ecosystem Lead for Qualcomm and develops and executes Qualcomm’s C-V2X deployment strategy across all global regions. Previously at Qualcomm, Jim led the automotive standards team.
In addition to his roles at Qualcomm, Jim serves as a 5GAA board member, ITS California board member, the SAE C-V2X Technical Committee Chair, on the IEEE ITS Society Board of Governors and is active in TRB. Jim also serves as an Advisory Council member to Mobility 21 led by Carnegie Melon University.
Jim was a pioneer in vehicle-highway automation and vehicle safety communication at the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) at UC Berkeley. He has served as the PATH Executive Director, Executive Advisor to Booz Allen Hamilton, and as an independent consultant. Jim holds BS and MS degrees from UCLA and USC.
Greg McGuire
Associate Director, University of Michigan
Greg McGuire is responsible for the safe and smooth operation of the Mcity Test Facility, the University of Michigan’s purpose-built proving ground for testing connected and automated vehicles and technologies. He also oversees Mcity’s growing fleet of research vehicles.
Prior to joining Mcity, McGuire spent twenty years designing and building tools to efficiently share resources and measure consumption, with a focus on mobility services and their intersection with our Internet-enabled society. He and his college roommate were the two engineers that built and scaled Zipcar. McGuire then went on to help found several mobility and data analytics startups before the lure of Mcity proved too great. An inveterate tinkerer, when he’s not busy with Mcity projects he will likely be found fixing one of his kids’ toys, brewing beer, or taking apart his car.
McGuire has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering (Computing / Imaging) from Case Western Reserve University.
Françoise Colpron
President, Valeo North America
Strategic global automotive executive with 25 years of international experience in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Serve as President of Valeo North America, a more than $4B business with 18,000 team members since 2008. Board positions include Sealed Air, Alstom, OESA and MEMA.
Xavier Mosquet
Senior Partner & Managing Director, BCG
Management and strategy consultant, Xavier Mosquet is also the founder of the BCG Detroit Office and former global co-leader of the automotive practice. He has 20 years of experience focusing on turnarounds and organization transformation, M&A, post-merger integration, growth strategies, innovation, go-to-market and digital practices. M. Mosquet also advised the US Treasury on the restructuring of GM and Chrysler and the Fiat-Chrysler alliance, as well as GM’s IPO. He received numerous awards for consulting, including being named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Consultants” by Consulting Magazine in 2012, and “Turnaround Consultant of the Year” in 2010.
Drew Winter
Senior Content Director, Wards Auto
Drew Winter is a Senior Content Director at WardsAuto.com. He oversees the editorial content and agendas for the annual WardsAuto Interiors and User-Experience Conferences. Winter is a judge for the annual Wards 10 Best Engines, 10 Best interiors and 10 Best UX awards as well as a juror for the independent North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year (NACTOY) awards. Winter is frequently interviewed by local and national media regarding automotive issues and has won more than 30 journalism awards during his career, including several first-place International Wheel Awards and a Jesse H. Neal Award.
