Luminar Attracts Former Nvidia, Tesla, Apple and Tier 1 Executives

Luminar (Nasdaq: LAZR), the global leader in automotive lidar hardware and software technology, announced several new additions to its technical leadership. Taner Ozcelik, the founder of Nvidia’s automotive business, joins Luminar as executive vice president and general manager to oversee product development, R&D, program management, and Luminar’s semiconductor subsidiaries. CJ Moore, who served as director of Autopilot software at Tesla and most recently a director of autonomous systems at Apple, is joining Luminar to lead its software program and realize its vision for next-generation safety and autonomy.

“With industry-defining technology and now nearly a dozen major commercial wins in hand, Luminar is ready for its next phase of leadership as we focus all-in on execution,” said Luminar Founder and CEO, Austin Russell. “We’re attracting the best leaders in the world in their fields to execute our vision and deliver on the future of transportation.”

Taner Ozcelik (Ph.D.) joins as executive vice president and general manager. He is responsible for R&D, product development, program management, IT, platform partnerships, and Luminar’s semiconductor subsidiaries. Prior to Luminar, he founded Nvidia’s automotive business and scaled it over the course of a decade to a multi-hundred million dollar revenue business. Luminar is the long-range lidar for NVIDIA’s DRIVE Hyperion autonomous vehicle platform. He most recently served as senior vice president and general manager at ON Semiconductor Corporation, where he transformed the intelligent sensing business and led it to become the worldwide camera market leader in automotive and robotics with approximately one billion dollars in revenue. Ozcelik is a hard-charging, commercially savvy, technically deep general manager with proven experience delivering complex technology solutions to automotive OEMs and consumers.

CJ Moore joins as vice president of software. Moore will lead Luminar’s global software development team, and will be instrumental in advancing Sentinel, Luminar’s full-stack advanced safety and autonomous solution. CJ previously served as a director of development of Tesla’s autopilot software with seven years at the company, and most recently as a director of autonomous systems at Apple. He brings an intense “build and ship” mentality and deep experience in embedded software and systems engineering to Luminar.