Executive Team

Austin Russell is an inventor, business leader, and automotive safety pioneer as the Founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies, a leader in automotive LiDAR hardware and software technology. Under Austin’s leadership, Luminar has developed state of the art LiDAR and software technology capable of enabling next-generation safety and autonomous capabilities for global production vehicles. Luminar has amassed over 50 commercial partners, including the majority of the world’s largest automakers. The company went public on the NASDAQ in 2020. Austin has set a 100-year vision for Luminar - to save as many as 100 million lives and 100 trillion hours on the road over the next century.

Austin founded Luminar in 2012 at age 17, after previously working on various photonics and optoelectronics projects, architecting a new kind of LiDAR to enable safe autonomous functionality on cars, trucks, and robotaxis. Now 29, Austin has been recognized by Forbes as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. Austin was also a recipient of the Thiel Fellowship, one of MIT Tech Review Innovators Under 35, and Forbes 30 under 30 alumni. He is an active philanthropist, recognized in 2022 on the Philanthropy 50 as the 36th largest donor in America.

For the past 25 years, Tom led many of the automotive industry’s most significant and successful financial endeavors that have shaped the industry globally. Before joining Luminar, from 2014 to May 2020, Tom was the Global Head of Automotive and the Co-Head of the Industrials Group at Jefferies Group, LLC. For 17 years prior, he held various roles at Goldman Sachs, including Global Head of Automotive and Co-Head of Goldman’s Industrials Group based in Beijing, China. Over that time, Tom managed IPOs, financings, and M&As for Tesla, Mobileye, Sensata, GM, Fiat Chrysler, BYD, Beijing Auto, Guangzhou Auto, Ballard Power, Cobasys, Key Safety Systems, Takata, Tower Automotive, Delphi, TowerSec, Visteon and many others. In 2015, Tom was recognized as one of M&A Advisor’s 40 under 40.

Al Prescott is an automotive and autonomous industry legal expert, engineer, and 20-year veteran from top OEM and technology companies. Al joined Luminar from Tesla, where he spent four years serving as General Counsel. Prior to Tesla, he led Uber’s Advanced Technology Group’s legal team as Senior Counsel overseeing commercial, regulatory, litigation, privacy, and cybersecurity. Al’s career began at Ford Motor Company as a safety engineer, before receiving his law degree from Georgetown University, after which he spent over 10 years leading various legal operations within the automaker, concentrating on product development and manufacturing, as well as several years as Special Counsel to the General Counsel.

Jason Eichenholz Ph.D. is an accomplished serial entrepreneur, investor, and pioneer in photonics product development and commercialization. Over the past 25 years, Jason has led the development of hundreds of millions of dollars of revolutionary new photonics and photonics-enabled products that have enabled a variety of applications from autonomous vehicles, battlefield explosives detection, early cancer detection, new drug delivery systems, and environmental studies. Jason holds more than 85 US patents, is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Optica, the society advancing optics and photonics worldwide. He is a member of Florida Inventors Hall of Fame and the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida. Jason has a M.S. and Ph.D in Optical Science and Engineering from CREOL – The College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida and a B.S. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Beyond his time at Luminar, Jason is focused on starting the next phase of his life. He wants to leverage his business success to create a life of significance, starting with the creation of Jonathan’s Landing, an innovative not-for-profit who mission is to relentlessly pursue housing and employment solutions that provide a life to dignity, meaning, and purpose for adults with autism, and give parents peace knowing their child is safe and happy after they are gone. Jason likes to give back to his community philanthropically and volunteers his time coaching and mentoring start-ups and has served for more than 20 years as a Reserve Lieutenant and Emergency Medical Technician with Orange County Fire Rescue.