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EXECUTIVE TEAM

We're on a mission to make the world accessible to all through better, more efficient, and more affordable mobility.


Prof. David Keene
CEO

David has 39 years in the Automotive industry, including 29 years ownership of Aurrigo. David graduated from Coventry University with a BSc. In Electronics Electrical Engineering and is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA). David founded RDM Group, in 1993 after 11 years at Rover Group having started on the graduate recruitment and development program and leaving at senior management level. David is a founding member and sits on the board of the UK Automotive Council which has set the strategy for Automotive in the UK for the last 12 years and the board of Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) High Value Manufacturing Catapult. In 2016 David was awarded visiting Professor status at Coventry University in Autonomous Vehicles. David is regularly interviewed as an authority on automotive design and manufacturing as well as autonomous vehicle and systems development.
Graham Keene
Head of Corporate Development and Co-Founder

Graham has 37 years’ experience across management services, production and finance in automotive and manufacturing. Graham has held both the manufacturing director role and CFO position at RDM Group for last 29 years. Previous roles included Royal Doulton 1986 – 1988 In their Management Services Section, Sandwell MBC 1988 - 1990 Business Process Development in the areas of contract tendering procedures and commercial management with the private sector, West Midlands Fire Service 1990 – 1991 organisational development for preventative maintenance procedures and cost restructuring associated with maintenance functions, Hereford and Worcester CC 1991 – 1995 organisational development including local government restructuring, organisational change management, financial management. Graham founded Richmond Design and Marketing Ltd (RDM Group) in Feb 1993 with David Keene.
Lewis Girdwood
Executive Director Aviation Technology

Former Chief Financial Officer at Esken
Former Chief Financial Officer at IAG Cargo
Former Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at EasyJet
Senior executive finance roles at Premier Foods PLC, British Bakeries Limited, and Racal Electronics Group International.
Member of the Audit Committee at Tommy’s charity
Simon Brewerton
CTO
Simon is a highly practical and capable CTO with 26 years’ experience in Automotive Engineering. Simon is an expert in Automotive Functional Safety (ISO 26262), processes and design cycles. After graduating with a BSc in Cybernetics and Control Systems, Simon spent four years as a project engineer for automotive body electronics, giving him thorough technical knowledge and real-world application experience. He then joined Siemens AG where he held a position as a microcontroller specialist within the Infineon (formerly Siemens) Automotive Marketing in the USA for six years. Since 2014 Simon has been CTO, tasked with growing the electronics, controls and Autonomous Vehicle technical capabilities of the Group.
Miles Garner
Director Sales & Marketing

Miles has 30 years’ experience within the automotive, telematics and consumer electronics industry. He has previously worked for Philips, Sony UK / Europe and Cobra. In 2007 Miles left RDM to join its spin off telematics company called Auto-Txt as sales and marketing director. He then re-joined Aurrigo in 2013. Miles has outstanding customer relationship skills and experience of sales and marketing strategy and execution and is a highly driven, customer focused and results orientated person with outstanding customer relationship skills.
Elliott Hawkins
Head of Design

Elliott joined Aurrigo in 2016 and prior to that he has worked in the field of electric vehicles for over ten years, including the design of one of the worlds’ first electric race cars whilst at Potenza Technology. At Aurrigo, Elliott is head of design and acts as a bridge between the different fields of engineering and design. He gained a first class degree from The University of Wales before gaining a Masters in Vehicle Design from The Royal College of Art. Elliott is passionate about all fields of design and engineering and has been the driving force at Aurrigo behind the styling and construction methods of the autonomous vehicle programs.
Ian Grubb
CFO
Ian joined Aurrigo as CFO in February 2022 and brings with him a wealth of financial and senior management experience. Ian has extensive accountancy experience from a broad spectrum of industries. A competent strategist capable of developing systems and people and can manage, motivate, train and develop a team in a highly pressurised and challenging work environment. His previous roles include, Leacy Classic Motor Group, Jupiter Marketing Limited and associated companies £85 million turnover fresh fruit and vegetable import and distribution group, THE Distribution Ltd a £290 million turnover business dealing in warehouse and distribution of home entertainment products, Holiday Hypermarket a travel agency with 37 hypermarkets with a turnover of c£350m sales, Red Mill Snack Food Ltd and TSB plc. Ian trained at Touche Ross and progressed to audit manager in his 4 year term there.
Tenille Houston
VP Public Relations and Communications

Tenille has 15 years leadership experience at Tier-One OEM’s and high-tech companies. Her previous role was CEO and co-founder at Auto Guardian in Ottawa, Canada, a company delivering autonomous vehicle solutions to councils and municipalities around North America. Tenille has extensive experience with government transport authorities, local government and grant funding bodies. She was responsible for delivering several high value grant assistance programs for Auto Guardian. Tenille thrives in new, ground up product and company development and has an ability to translate internal engineering requirements to external customer facing collateral. She has extensive public speaking experience to include a TEDx talk, high profile press events and live news interviews.
She has a master’s degree in Public Administration with specialisation in Public Management.


Wards Auto and Informatech Automotive Inspiration of the Year 2022
Nick Ridler
Director of Product Development

Nick has 25 years’ experience successfully delivering Advanced Engineering projects and is a proven innovator with ability to develop new technology and exploit market potential. He joined RDM in 2005 and left in 2007, working 11 years at Jaguar Land Rover in their research and advanced products division. Returning to Aurrigo in 2017, Nick has led the team developing the electrical and autonomous vehicle systems and has recently taken over as head of aviation simulation. He now leads the companies drive to develop this product to maturity and additionally leads all potential customer engagement and simulation work in the grant funded programs. Nick is a commercially astute senior manager with strong leadership skills, someone who understands the importance of team building and personal development. He is customer focused with ability to engage at all levels to generate and deliver business solutions. He holds a BSc. Industrial Product Design degree from Coventry University.
Chris Keefe
VP Creative and Digital Marketing

Chris joined Aurrigo in 2015 and has 7 years of robotics and autonomous industry experience within a career in the automotive industry spanning over 30 years. He leads the North America office and has been solely responsible for business development and customer support in the region as well as delivering a grant supported program enabling our first Auto-Pods to arrive in Canada. He also has considerable experience of TV and media production and has worked in director and senior roles at companies in a number of countries. Within Aurrigo he is also responsible for curating all PR and media content as well as developing the companies own web site. He holds a BSc. Comm Development degree from Central Michigan University.
Sam Layton
Regional VP Singapore

Sam joined Aurrigo in December of 2019 with an Engineering background in Software, Simulation and Network Security. Sam was responsible for delivering the first prototype of Aurrigo's Auto-Sim product, building the software from the ground up and working with aviation clients to provide bespoke simulations with valuable and insightful outputs. Outside of the simulation space, Sam has worked on numerous Aurrigo AV deployments, both in operational and software development capacities. From September 2022, Sam now leads Aurrigo's Singapore and SEA operations, providing direction for the SG deployment and software development teams and interacting directly with project stakeholders to drive the company forward in the region.
Dana Borschewski
Regional VP Americas

Dana is an accomplished sales executive and account management professional with over 20 years of experience in various sectors both nationally and internationally. With previous experience in the public sector at the City of Ottawa and Invest Ottawa, as well as the Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, Dana has extensive knowledge in municipal, provincial and federal programs for technology. Her most recent role was in the private sector at a tech start-up, working with large corporate customers in last mile logistics.
Dr. Richard Fairchild
Chief Operations Officer

Richard has extensive experience of working in fast paced start up environments and within emerging product areas such as Mobility as a Service, autonomous vehicles and clean tech. Having trained in electronic and software engineering, Richard went on to study Transport Engineering and undertook a PhD on the subject of autonomous vehicles, publishing in 2009. After working in academic research at Newcastle University’s Transport Operations Research Department, Richard joined RDM Group in 2011. Richard developed the Telematics division at RDM, tendering for and winning a project to deliver telematics systems and services to the London Olympic Games. In early 2017, Richard was approached by RDM with a view to returning to the company to assist with the autonomous projects which were rapidly expanding. Joining in March 2017, Richard assisted with the development of the Aurrigo company, including branding, marketing, and sales. As Operations Director, Richard was responsible for deployments of Aurrigo Pods across the UK and the world with deployments from Milton Keynes to Adelaide, to Ottawa. In 2020, Richard left Aurrigo to take the position of Chief Product Officer at FOD Mobility Group with the responsibility of developing the product roadmap for the ‘Mobilleo’ mobility-as-a-service travel platform. With the expansion of the Group's autonomous activities Richard has returned in April 2022 to head up Autonomous Vehicle projects across the UK, Europe, and Scandinavia.
Jez Coates
Chief Engineer Vehicle Programs

Jez has 45 years’ experience in design, development, homologation and manufacture of low volume vehicles including 23 years at Caterham Cars as Technical Director with responsibility for the design and development for all road and race models. He has expertise in low volume supplier selection, Bill of Materials (BOM) construction, manufacturing cost control and retail pricing. Jez is responsible for all design and development of the Group’s autonomous vehicles and platforms.
Jez has a Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Warwick University.

Chris Keefe

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