Volvo Cars appoints Ödgärd Andersson CEO of its autonomous drive software company Zenseact

Volvo Cars has appointed Ödgärd Andersson as the new chief executive of its autonomous drive (AD) software development company, which is called Zenseact.

The appointment of Ödgärd Andersson, currently chief digital officer at Volvo Cars, will come into effect on November 1. Zenseact was formed recently as a new entity wholly owned by Volvo Cars, following the split-up of Volvo Cars’ joint venture company with Veoneer.

Zenseact will focus on the development of AD and active safety software. It employs around 600 people and has offices in Gothenburg, Sweden and Shanghai, China.

Before her role as chief digital officer, Ödgärd Andersson was responsible for software development at Volvo Cars, including autonomous drive. This background makes her the perfect candidate to lead this next phase of development for Zenseact.

“Autonomous drive is the engineering challenge of the century and we’re facing it head-on,” said Ödgärd Andersson. “Joining Zenseact at this time is exciting as we accelerate development and gear up to deliver software that will allow the first cars to safely drive themselves in a few years.”

Zenseact’s first delivery will be technology for Volvo Cars’ next generation modular scalable architecture, SPA 2, including the Highway Pilot, an unsupervised autonomous drive function for motorways.

Apart from the appointment of Ödgärd Andersson, Volvo Cars has also changed the composition of the board of directors for Zenseact. It has appointed Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive of Volvo Cars, as new Chairman of the board. Both appointments underline the importance Volvo Cars places on the development of safe AD technology.

“Volvo Cars believes autonomous drive will revolutionise road safety and we are committed to introduce the technology in our next generation cars,” said Håkan Samuelsson.

In light of Ödgärd Andersson’s new role, Henrik Green will step in as interim chief digital officer, in addition to his responsibilities as chief technology officer and head of the Product Creation business area, while recruitment for Ödgärd Andersson’s replacement is ongoing.