Rivian has appointed Diane Lye as its first chief information officer, a position the electric car maker says is needed to expand globally.
Lye’s hiring comes as Rivian consolidates its internal and external technology teams across its many divisions, including IT manufacturing and customer-facing digital products. It also precedes Rivian’s planned expansion in Georgia, where it is building another plant, and abroad through a partnership with Mercedes-Benz. Rivian said that information technology and cybersecurity must become more complex as they expand globally.
The appointment also comes amid a restructuring that has led to layoffs of about 6% of its workforce and executive changes, including the appointment of Frank Klein as the new chief operating officer.
IT infrastructure and cybersecurity are important components – some argue the foundation – of any business, regardless of size. In Rivian’s case, the company is not only large (about 14,000 people work there) but has an extensive network of offices, factories and other facilities spread across the US, Canada and the UK. And while PwC CEO Christopher Perego has been the interim CIO since January, that position did not exist prior to that.
Rivian is headquartered in Irvine, California and its only (currently) plant is in Normal, Illinois, where the R1T pickup truck, R1S SUV, and commercial electric truck are produced. The Vehicle Software and Electronics division is headquartered in Palo Alto, California; The Vehicle Engineering, Prototyping, Supply Chain, and Accounting are based in Plymouth, Michigan, and their vehicle management software teams are based in an office in Vancouver, British Columbia. Rivian also has an office in Carson, California focused on electrical power conversion, a test facility in Arizona and an advanced concept engineering team in the UK. Its European business center is located in Amsterdam.
“With Diane’s experience scaling global technology teams across multiple industries, including retail, technology and finance, we are extremely excited to have her join Rivian at such a critical time in our growth,” Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said in a statement.
Lye has held several technology-focused leadership roles over the past three decades, including a nine-year stint at Amazon on the retail side and on Amazon Web Services. She moved to Citi Capital Markets and Bank of America Retail Banking and Capital Markets.
Most recently, Lye held the position of Executive Vice President and Head of Credit Card Division at Capital One, where she led an organization of 4,500 people responsible for all of the technologies required to run the company’s credit card business. During her six-year tenure, Lye led a program to migrate all data, analytics technology, risk technology, and financial systems to the AWS cloud.
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/rivian-chooses-capital-one-executive-diane-lye-as-its-first-cio-techcrunch/
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