Powerlist2014: Jon Lauckner, GM Ventures

Rank last year: 10

Jon Lauckner, president of GM Ventures and the parent company’s chief technology officer and vice-president of research and development, is effectively responsible for driving General Motors’ advanced technology strategy.

Lauckner led the creation of GM Ventures as a separate subsidiary in July 2010 at the request of Steve Girsky, GM vice-chairman.

GM Ventures won a corporate investor of the year award for 2013 from Cleantech Group based on its portfolio having the largest percentage of companies in the Global Cleantech 100 List.

In April of 2012, Lauckner took on the additional responsibilities of chief technology officer and head of research and development for the US car manufacturer, as well as retaining his role as head of GM Ventures.

Lauckner began his career with General Motors in 1979, working in several assignments in power trainand vehicle engineering. Later, Lauckner worked in the marketing and product planning staff. From 1992-2005, he worked in various product development assignments in South America and Europe. He moved back to the US from Europe in mid-2005 to lead a new position as vice-president of global programme management and in mid-2009 was named vice-president of global product planning.

Lauckner received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from University of Michigan in 1979. He earned a master of science degree in management from Stanford Business School in 1990 through the Sloan fellowship programme and attended the GM-Harvard senior executive programme in 2001.

One of Lauckner’s favourite projects was developing the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors’ multi award-winning plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. He said in a 2012 interview: “It was a terrific opportunity to create a car that many so-called experts said could not be done at all and certainly could not be done within the time frame we had established. We announced the concept car in January 2007 and the first Volts were on the road in November 2010. The Volt has led us to innovations in batteries, electronic motors, charging systems, control systems and many other areas. And it drove us to develop technical capabilities that we will leverage for many years to come.” Lauckner is a board observer for several of GM Ventures’ portfolio companies. He is a board member of the Michigan Venture Capital Association and is on the University of Michigan Engineering Advisory Board.

What is the future of your sector?

Lauckner said: “The technology in automotive will change rapidly over the next five to 10 years, presenting a lot of new opportunities for start-ups. This trend will not only be focused on traditional automotive technologies like propulsion, emissions and materials. Rather, a surge of completely new technology is already on the horizon and a lot of it will probably be developed by start-ups and suppliers that are new to the automotive business. These new hot beds of innovation include infotainment, connected car telematics, active safety and autonomous driving and cyber-security technologies, to name a few.”

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