The Tesla Motors Team

Elon Musk
Chairman, Product Architect and CEO

Elon co-founded Tesla and continues to oversee the company's product strategy -- including the design, engineering and manufacturing of more and more affordable electric vehicles for mainstream consumers. As Chairman and Product Architect, he helped design the ground-breaking Tesla Roadster, for which he won an Index and a Global Green award, the latter presented by Mikhail Gorbachev. In October 2008, he took on the additional responsibility of CEO, overseeing daily operations as the company was ramping up Roadster production and accelerating the development of its second vehicle, the Model S.

Elon launched Tesla's regional sales and service centers across two continents and in May 2009 secured a $50 million investment and strategic partnership from Germany's Daimler. He spearheaded a successful cost-down program that enabled Tesla to achieve profitability in July 2009. He guides development of the Model S, the all-electric family sedan that will be produced in Southern California in an assembly facility that will employ approximately 1,000 workers.

Elon has been fascinated by electric cars for two decades. After earning bachelor's degrees in physics and business from the University of Pennsylvania, he worked briefly on ultracapacitors at Pinnacle Research in Silicon Valley to understand their potential as an energy storage mechanism for EVs. He planned to do graduate studies at Stanford in materials science and applied physics but put school on hold to start Internet companies Zip2 and PayPal. In addition to his Tesla duties, he serves as CEO and CTO of SpaceX, and he's Chairman of SolarCity.

JB Straubel
Chief Technical Officer

The story of JB's career started at a junkyard in Wisconsin, where, at the age of 14, he discovered a discarded electric golf cart and decided to rebuild it. Thus began a lifelong fascination with energy work and electric vehicles.

As a co-founder of Tesla, JB has overseen the technical and engineering design of the vehicles, focusing on the battery, motor, power electronics, and high-level software sub-systems. Additionally, he evaluates new technology, manages vehicle systems testing, and handles technical interface with key vendors.

Prior to Tesla, JB was the CTO and co-founder of the aerospace firm, Volacom, which designed a specialized high-altitude electric aircraft platform using a novel power plant. At Volacom, JB invented and patented a new long-endurance hybrid electric propulsion concept that was later licensed to Boeing. Before Volacom, JB worked at Rosen Motors as a propulsion engineer developing a new hybrid electric vehicle drivetrain based on a micro turbine and a high-speed flywheel. JB was also part of the early team at Pentadyne, where he designed and built a first-generation 150kW power inverter, motor-generator controls, and magnetic bearing systems.

Armed with a bachelor's in energy systems engineering and an master's in energy engineering from Stanford University, JB left the cold winters of Wisconsin for good. He now lives in Menlo Park, Calif., where he continues to indulge his passion for electric transportation: he built an electric Porsche 944 that held a world EV racing record, a custom electric bicycle, and a pioneering hybrid trailer system. JB is also an accomplished pilot.

Deepak Ahuja
Chief Financial Officer

Deepak brings more than 15 years of global automotive financial experience to the Tesla team. As Chief Financial Officer, Deepak brings invaluable insight of a well-versed industry veteran to help Tesla become a leading automobile company in the world.

Prior to joining Tesla Motors, Deepak was the Controller of Small Cars Product Development at Ford with the goal of bringing several exciting fuel efficient automobiles to the North American market. Previously, Deepak was CFO for Ford of Southern Africa, a $3 Billion subsidiary where he oversaw the finance, legal and IT functions. Prior to that, Deepak served as CFO for Auto Alliance International, a joint venture between Ford and Mazda with over $4 billion in revenue. His career at Ford included assignments in all aspects of the business, including Manufacturing, Marketing and Sales, Treasury, Acquisition and Divestitures.

Before joining Ford, Deepak worked as an engineer for Kennametal, Inc. near Pittsburgh, PA for almost 6 years and developed two new ceramic composites cutting tools for machining of aluminum alloys in aerospace and automotive industries.

Deepak, his wife and two daughters have moved from Michigan to Silicon Valley, where Deepak spearheads financial initiatives out of Tesla’s San Carlos headquarters. In his spare time Deepak enjoys playing racquet ball, spending time with his kids and hiking. He loves cooking Indian food on special occasions just to have fun with his friends and family.

Deepak holds bachelor's and master's degrees in materials engineering from Banaras Hindu University and Northwestern University, respectively and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Franz von Holzhausen
Chief Designer

As Chief Designer, Franz is responsible for driving the overall design direction of Tesla, and is charged with establishing a world class design competency for all future Tesla design concepts and production vehicles.

Prior to joining Tesla, Franz was Director of Design at the Mazda North American Design Center. While at Mazda, Franz pioneered the Nagare surface language design philosophy. The word Nagare itself is but one of 150 different ways to describe motion in the Japanese language.

The Nagare and Furai concepts were the progenitors of The visual interpretation of what has become the new design language for the Mazda brand. These two initial concepts led to the development of the Ryuga, Hakaze and Taiki As well as the Kazemai - the latest concept unveiled in Moscow. Franz also led design of the Mazda RX-8, Tribute, and Mazda5 production vehicle facelifts, and was instrumental in the design development of the 2009 Mazda6 and Mazda3.

Before spearheading design at Mazda, Franz held the Design Director position at General Motors. The Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, and Opel GT are all examples of Franz’s efforts at GM. Franz began his career as Assistant Chief Designer at Volkswagen, where he was involved in projects from Concept One to the Microbus.

When not immersed in design, architecture, and fashion, Franz enjoys sailing, cycling, and snowboarding. Franz also revels in driving one of the cars in his modest collection, which ranges from American muscle to Italian finesse.

Franz began his studies at Syracuse University in the field of industrial design and graduated from Art Center College of Design in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in Transportation Design.

Peter Rawlinson
Vice President & Chief Engineer for Vehicle Engineering

Prior to Tesla, Peter led vehicle engineering at Corus Automotive, an engineering consultancy specializing in advanced engineering solutions for the global motor industry. Traditional vehicle programs Peter worked on at Corus include the X type, XJ and F-type Jaguars, Land-Rover Freelander and Discovery, Ford Fiesta, Honda Accord, BMW 5 Series and Bentley Continental. He also led development of the Think electric vehicle platform, which was done with only 5 engineers in 6 months, while still meeting cost and mass targets. Peter’s design set a new world record for best crash safety performance in the subcompact vehicle class.

Before Corus, Peter served as Chief Engineer of Advanced Engineering at Lotus, where he pioneered the use of advanced aluminum body structures, bonding cast elements with stampings and extrusions, an approach subsequently widely adopted within the industry. Vehicles using this approach include Aston Martins, the new Jaguar XJ, the current Audi A8 and the latest generation of the Audi TT.

Prior to Lotus, Peter was Manager for Advanced Drive-train and Suspension Systems at GKN Technology in the UK. At GKN, he developed an advanced drive-train layout with a forward front drive and axle-line, paving the way for safer and more spatially efficient vehicles only now emerging in the marketplace, such as the Toyota IQ.

Before GKN, Peter was Principal Engineer at Jaguar for almost a decade, responsible for advanced body structure design, layout and packaging, including crashworthiness. He was one of the first to apply computer-aided-design to automotive engineering and was an integral part of the team that advanced the integration of computer-aided-design with computer-aided analytical tools within a simultaneous engineering environment. That same methodology is being applied at Tesla.

Peter is a Mechanical Engineering graduate of Imperial College, London.

Jim Dunlay
Vice President, Powertrain Hardware Engineering

Jim came to Tesla in 2006 to lead Tesla's power electrionics team from prototype to production. In 2007 he took on additional responsibility for Tesla's battery pack, adding both design Engineering and manufacturing duties. Jim led the "on-shoring" of Tesla's battery manufacturing, which now produces battery packs for the Roadster and Daimler's Smart city car. In 2009, Jim added development responsibility for Tesla's motor and transmission.

Before joining Tesla, Jim spent 25 years in the computer industry developing computer systems at Sun Microsystems, manufacturing test equipment at Tandem Computers and electronic instrumentation at Hewlett Packard.

Jim has acquired several project cars including his 1969 GTO Convertible and his 1967 Jaguar E-Type. With his background in electrical engineering and his passion for cars, Jim has found a perfect home at Tesla.

Jim earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is married, has three children and spends his free time with his family.

Jon Sobel
General Counsel

Jon has been at the heart of disruptive technology for more than a decade. Before starting at Tesla in September 2009, he served as the president of SourceForge's media group, where he launched a complete rebuilding of the company's open-source development and distribution platform, SourceForge.net. There, he led a collaborative, team of employees from engineering, sales and marketing including the founders and editors of Slashdot, a pioneering technology site.

Previously, Sobel was senior vice president of strategy and business development at CBS Interactive, and he was partner at San Francisco-based law firm Folger Levin & Kahn. He has also worked as in-house counsel at several Silicon Valley companies.

Sobel spent six years at Internet search pioneer Yahoo, where he was senior vice president, general counsel, board secretary and a member of the company's executive committee. He joined Yahoo in 1998 and was rapidly promoted to lead the team, which grew during his tenure to include more than 75 attorneys. In this role, he strategically guided the company through an era of unprecedented change in the online world.

Jon has a bachelor's degree from Princeton University, MBA from Wharton, and a law degree from the University of Michigan. Jon is a native Midwesterner who has owned several distinctive vehicles, including his first car, a red 1973 Chevy Vega, and an International Scout.

Diarmuid O'Connell
Vice President of Business Development

Diarmuid joined Tesla in 2006, and currently serves as the Vice President of Business Development in which capacity he manages commercial relationships and all aspects of government affairs. Before joining Tesla, Diarmuid served as Chief of Staff for Political Military Affairs at the US State Department, where he was involved in policy and operational support to the U.S military in various theaters of operation.

Before his tenure in Washington, Diarmuid worked in corporate strategy as a management consultant for Accenture, as a founder of educational software developer, Real Time Learning, and as a senior executive with both McCann Erickson Worldwide and Young and Rubicam. Over the course of his career, he has managed international operations, projects and marketing for such brands as Coca Cola, Gillette, and AT&T, among others.

Diarmuid has earned a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College, a master's degree in Foreign Policy from the University of Virginia, and an MBA from Kellogg. He lives with his wife and two children in the Bay Area and escapes to the mountains whenever possible.

John Walker
Vice President Sales North America

John was appointed Vice President Sales for North America in August 2009 and is responsible for all sales in the United States and Canada, including the coast-to-coast retail expansion and opening of new stores in world’s largest car market.

John has spent the past two decades in the global automotive industry, including assignments in South Africa, Australia, Canada and the United States. Before Tesla, John spent a decade in various sales and marketing positions at German luxury carmaker Audi. He was most recently general manager sales operations for Audi of America and previously director of sales for Audi Canada and general Manager of sales for Audi Australia.

John began his automotive career in South Africa with General Motors and BMW. His first job in the auto industry was a three-month spot-welding stint at a GM factory in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Other than the Roadster, John’s favorite cars are the 1960s Jaguar E-type and the 1964 Ford Mustang. His first car was a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle, which he still owns.

Ricardo Reyes
Vice President of Communications

Like a kid in a candy store, Ricardo spent his first day with Tesla at the Frankfurt Motor Show in August of 2009. Before joining Tesla, Ricardo was the head of communications and public affairs at YouTube. He previously handled litigation, competition and policy communications for Google, Inc.

Ricardo also spent a decade working on public policy and communications in Washington DC, including two years at law firm Bracewell and Giuliani LLC. Among the corporate and political clients he advised, he worked closely with General Motors’ suppliers as they faced major changes to their business structure. Ricardo served as Deputy Assistant US Trade Representative for Public and Media Affairs from 2001 to 2004, as a spokesman for US international trade policy. He was also managing editor of Regulation Magazine published by the Cato Institute, and worked with various public policy groups during his time in DC.

In 1996, Ricardo worked as an observer for national elections in his birth country, Nicaragua. As a kid, he spent summers pumping gas, checking fluid levels, and changing oil filters at gas stations run by his dad. Ricardo is a graduate of Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is married, with two young kids.

Mike Taylor
Vice President of Finance

Mike joined Tesla as Vice President of Finance in September 2007. Mike brings 17 years of financial expertise to the company.

Mike began his career at Goldman Sachs & Co., where he helped clients worldwide raise over $2 billion in structured debt financing. He then worked for McKinsey and Company and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he helped several companies through IPOs and acquisitions. In 1994, Mike caught the technology bug and has since helped game-changing companies raise more than $250 million in public and private financings. His first foray into high tech was with Scopus Technology, for which he managed the public offering process prior to that company's acquisition by Siebel Systems. Mike also served as Vice President of Finance for network management software pioneer Micromuse, where he coordinated the IPO and several financing rounds and managed all financial planning and investor relations activities. Mike then served as Chief Financial Officer for Benchmark Capital and Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Tropos Networks, where he helped raise more than $80 million in venture financing.

Along the way, Mike found time to earn a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley and JD/MBA from Stanford University. Mike is married and has two children. He serves on the board for the Center for the Early Intervention on Deafness.

Evelyn Chiang
Vice President of Supply Chain and IT

Evelyn, who joined Tesla in August 2007, oversees Supply Chain and Information Technology. Previously, she served as Senior Vice President of Operations of the Product and Technology Group of enterprise software giant SAP AG, where she managed global operations, including strategic business planning, portfolio management and post-merger integration. She also managed new product introductions and served as Director of Professional Services at SAP. Throughout her 19-year career, Evelyn has held various roles in operations, consulting, and business development.

Evelyn co-founded her first company at the age of 14, after working in family-owned businesses including pharmaceuticals manufacturing and retail operations. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Matt Au
Vice President, Corporate Controller

Matt joined Tesla in July 2009, responsible for accounting and financial reporting. Previously, he was vice president of finance for Gilead Sciences, a Foster City, Calif.-based bio-pharmaceutical company focused on research and manufacturing of anti-viral therapies for HIV-positive patients. Matt spent five years with Gilead, managing more than 200 people and shepherding the company’s growth from $400 million to over $6 billion in annual sales.

Before Gilead, Matt spent nine years with KLA-Tencor, a San Jose, Calif.-based semiconductor capital equipment company. He held various finance management positions, including two years in Japan as Asia controller. Matt rose to vice president and corporate controller, managing the global accounting and financial reporting functions for KLA-Tencor as sales expanded from $200 million to over $2 billion annually. Prior to KLA-Tencor, Matt spent five years at IBM, starting as a cost accountant for a high-end disk drive plant.

Matt sits on the advisory board of the Dominican Sisters Congregation in Mission San Jose, which runs three Catholic schools in California and assists ministries in California, Germany, Mexico, and Guatemala. Matt is a big fan of the NFL and English Premier League soccer and spends many Sundays battling with his two kids in their own fantasy football league. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from UC Berkeley, and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago.

Barrie Dickinson
Program Director and Chief Engineer for Tesla Roadster

Barrie joined Tesla Motors in 2004 as employee No. 13 – and the first with a vehicle engineering background. He set up Tesla Motors Ltd., the UK vehicle engineering center, and oversaw the Roadster styling program and engineering of the Roadster’s body and interior systems, including the car’s industry-leading carbon fiber body panels. Barrie moved to California in 2005 to help lead the launch of Tesla’s first vehicle and is now responsible for all Roadster programs.

Previously, Barrie worked for Lotus Cars Ltd. He joined in 1997, responsible for body engineering solutions for Proton and Lotus projects as well as for external clients such as Aston Martin and General Motors. He was responsible for the body and trim content for the US version of the Lotus Elise and became Lotus’ Chief Engineer for Body & Trim. Barrie started his automotive career on the graduate training program with Jaguar, where he was part the engineering team for the 1994 XJ platform and the launch team of the acclaimed 1996 XK8.

Barrie holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in engineering design and manufacture from the University of Hull in the UK.

Christian Reynolds
Manufacturing Operations Director

As Operations Director for the Tesla Roadster platform, Christian coordinates UK and US vehicle assembly operations. He joined Tesla in 2005, responsible for setting up Tesla’s manufacturing operations.

Prior to joining Tesla, Christian was with Oxford, England-based TWR Automotive Consultancy as principle manufacturing engineer. He lead manufacturing engineering teams through a variety of new model launches in Australia and China, including the Holden Crew cab and Regular Cab platforms, and new technology launches including AFC (Asian Family Car), establishing a new general assembly facility and process engineering for the product.

Before that, he worked for Lotus, where he supported the manufacturing of the MK2 Elise, introducing general assembly process facilities and establishing assembly process baseline for vehicle manufacture.

Christian started his career at Rover Group, supporting product launches across the R3 platform. He was part of the core introduction team for R200 and helped take the R25 & R45 from clay model feasibility to production manufacturing. When BMW acquired Rover, he became general assembly plant engineer for powertrain integration and testing across all models at an assembly plant in Birmingham, England.

Henry Brice
Program Director for Model S

Henry is an automotive industry veteran who directs programs for the all-electric Model S family sedan. Previously, he was Assistant Chief Engineer of the North American Fiesta program at Ford, where he was responsible for 1.1 million units produced annually. He served as Assistant Chief Engineer for Ford’s Panther full-size sedan platform, including the Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis and Town Car Vehicle lines produced at the assembly plants in Ontario and Michigan. He managed as many as seven product launches per year and had an average year-over-year quality improvement of 10 percent, while beating cost targets by 12 percent.

Prior to Lincoln, Henry served as Program Manager for Ford’s popular and profitable F-Series trucks, including the all new SuperCrew, Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. Henry helped to deliver the SuperCrew four months faster than any prior program of comparable scope – an effort Ford recognized as a “Flawless Launch.” The 2003 Lincoln Blackwood received better customer satisfaction ratings than any other Ford product. The 2000 Lincoln Navigator received 6 points higher customer satisfaction than the prior model.

Before working on the F Series platform, Henry worked on the Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer programs -- from writing the initial product concept documents to managing body construction. The new Escort and Tracer launched at higher quality and lower warranty levels than the prior model, an unprecedented achievement in a major changeover at Ford.

Henry received bachelor’s degrees with honors in physics in 1985 and engineering in 1986 from Harvard University. He received a master’s degree in engineering in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan in 1989, where he received the departmental award. He received a MBA from the University of Michigan with high distinction in 1999.

Alan Cherry
Senior Director Human Resources

Alan is responsible for all human resources strategy and operational activities. These include: recruitment and talent, reward and recognition, training and development. In addition he is responsible for all facilities activities.

Alan has more than 25 years generalist human resource experience with a strong area of expertise in high-tech companies. Alan has held senior HR positions in global organizations including Hewlett Packard, Nortel, Network Appliance and Autodesk. He has also led the HR function in start-up and medium sized organizations in Silicon Valley. Alan has extensive global experience having worked and lived in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America.

Alan has a degree in business studies from Dorset University, and a post graduate diploma in human resources from Middlesex University.

Philip Bethell
Senior Manager Menlo Park Manufacturing Operations

Phil is Senior Manager of Menlo Park Manufacturing Operations, responsible for setting up final assembly operations of the Roadster in California’s Silicon Valley. Soon after joining Tesla in 2007, Phil relocated to England to help guide manufacturing of the Roadster’s carbon fiber body panels. Phil was an integral part of the team responsible for transitioning body panel manufacturing to Sotira Composites in France.

Previously, Phil spent eight years at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company as senior manufacturing applications engineer, where he developed manufacturing products, processes and equipment for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, F-22 Air Superiority Fighter and the F-16 Fighting Falcon Programs. His support was instrumental in making these projects meet cost and schedule targets, while dramatically increasing machine process efficiency. He also managed the F-16 wing assembly cell, where he led development of software and hardware that automated robotic programming and calibration utilizing six-axis force sensors. This very early application of force sensors is still widely used today. Phil also served on the Lockheed Martin Intellectual Property Review Board, where he evaluated all manufacturing-related patent applications for the aeronautics division.

Phil received a bachelor’s degree in industrial and manufacturing engineering in 1999 from the Indiana Institute of Technology. He received a master’s degree in manufacturing systems management from Southern Methodist University in 2003.