SpaceX and GoPro Executives Join Luminar

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Emily Shanklin Joins as Senior VP of Marketing

Kevin Hinge Joins as Executive VP of Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Quality

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Luminar (Nasdaq: LAZR), a leading global automotive technology company, today announced two new key executives have decided to join Luminar.

  • Emily Shanklin most recently served as the senior most marketing executive at SpaceX. Prior to joining Luminar, she spent 15 years at SpaceX, leading an Emmy-award winning team responsible for inspiring the public around the company’s efforts to further human exploration of space. Reporting directly to Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk, Shanklin provided leadership across all aspects of the marketing & communications function. She will be joining Luminar to help drive and scale its vision to democratize next-generation safety and autonomy, and will report to the Founder and CEO, Austin Russell.
  • Kevin Hinge most recently served as the chief supply chain officer at GoPro, successfully developing, building, and shipping millions of action cameras annually in markets across the globe while substantially costing-down the supply chain. Kevin is joining Luminar to consolidate and scale its manufacturing, supply chain, and quality operations, and will also report to the Founder and CEO, Austin Russell.

“Kevin has an outstanding track record of execution, value engineering, and driving efficiency gains for supply chains at global technology companies, including most recently high-volume optical cameras with GoPro. Many of the same principles and efficiencies from his prior supply chain and engineering leadership can be applied to Luminar, as we scale our high-volume production facilities in Mexico and Asia to deliver on our production vehicle models from our partners. Kevin will play a pivotal role in helping Luminar achieve our profitability targets,” said Austin Russell, Founder and CEO of Luminar.

He added “Inspiring others around the impact of SpaceX’s efforts on the future of human space exploration was a key driver for the company’s mission, and it’s clear Emily knocked that out of the park. Similarly, at Luminar she will be working to distill our advanced lidar and software/AI technology for the public, working collaboratively with our automotive partners to realize our higher vision of eradicating vehicle accidents.”

About Emily Shanklin: As Luminar’s senior vice president of marketing, she is responsible for building and elevating the Luminar brand at global scale, proportionate to the impact Luminar is driving for the world. During her 15-year tenure, Shanklin helped transition SpaceX from a little-known aerospace company to one of the world’s most recognized technology brands with over 50 million followers across the company’s social media platforms. Shanklin holds a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and earned her MBA at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

About Kevin Hinge: As Luminar’s executive vice president of manufacturing, supply chain and quality, he is responsible for overall supply chain and manufacturing execution, including strategic sourcing, product quality, and scaling the company’s contract manufacturing partnerships to new heights. Prior to joining Luminar, Hinge served as chief supply chain officer at GoPro, leading global manufacturing as well as engineering and technical operations spanning its supply chain, global fulfillment, logistics, quality, safety, and compliance. Prior to joining GoPro, Hinge held executive operations and supply chain roles at companies ranging from startups to conglomerates, including Nokia, Smartaics, and Enecsys. Hinge also previously operated his own design company working in numerous product domains, including medical, aeronautical, automotive, and consumer devices.

About Luminar:

Luminar is a global automotive technology company ushering in a new era of vehicle safety and autonomy. For the past decade, Luminar has built an advanced hardware and software/AI platform to enable its more than 50 industry partners, including the majority of global automotive OEMs. From consumer vehicle programs with Volvo Cars and Mercedes-Benz to technology partnerships including NVIDIA and Mobileye, Luminar is poised to be the first automotive technology company to enable next-generation safety and autonomous capabilities for global production vehicles. For more information please visit www.luminartech.com.

Media Relations:
Milin Mehta
Press@luminartech.com

Investor Relations:
Aileen Smith
Investors@luminartech.com

Source: Luminar

Released August 1, 2023