MENLO PARK, Calif., October 5, 2021 — Cyngn (or the “Company”), a developer of innovative autonomous driving software solutions for industrial and commercial enterprises, today announced the appointments of Colleen Cunningham, a retired finance executive, and Jim McDonnell, a veteran sales & marketing executive, to its Board of Directors.
Bringing over 35 years of experience in finance to Cyngn, Ms. Cunningham most recently served as Senior Vice President-Controller at Zoetis, Inc., a global animal health company, where she helped bring the company public in 2013. She previously held roles as Global Managing Director at RGP, CEO of Financial Executives International, and CFO of Havas Advertising. She has also served as a former member of the FASB Advisory Committee and IASB Advisory Committee. Ms. Cunningham is recently retired, working as a freelance chef and serving on boards of nonprofits.
Boasting 38 years of experience in sales & marketing, Mr. McDonnell currently serves as the SVP of Sales & Marketing at Vispero, a private equity backed company that is the world’s leading assistive technology provider for the visually impaired. Mr. McDonnell was previously the VP of sales excellence HSM and Commercial Excellence for HSF at Honeywell and was responsible for designing and implementing the go-to-market strategy for Honeywell Scanning and Mobility. He also previously served as SVP Global Sales & Marketing at Intermec and held numerous senior roles for more than 26 years at Hewlett-Packard.
Lior Tal, CEO of Cyngn, stated, “We are very excited to welcome Colleen and Jim to Cyngn’s Board. I am confident that Colleen’s extensive background in finance and capital markets will prove valuable as Cyngn progresses down this path to becoming a public company. Jim’s tremendous expertise and proven leadership in sales & marketing at various tech companies will be particularly instrumental as we work toward full-scale commercialization of our Enterprise Autonomy Suite.”
Ms. Cunningham commented, “I am honored to be joining the Board of Cyngn at this exciting juncture in the Company’s history. I look forward to serving as a resource to the leadership team when it comes to IPOs, SEC reporting, and technical accounting as the Company navigates the journey to becoming publicly listed and commits to beginning an ongoing dialogue with the investment community.”
Mr. McDonnell added, “I am thrilled to be joining Cyngn as an independent director at this monumental point in the Company’s development. I believe that my extensive background as a senior sales & marketing executive and strong skills in developing and executing an effective go- to-market strategy will prove valuable to Cyngn in these early stages. Cyngn’s innovative autonomous driving software solutions seek to revolutionize the way in which industrial and commercial enterprises operate, and I am pleased to have this opportunity to be a part of the Company’s future success.”
About Cyngn
Cyngn is a Silicon Valley venture-backed industrial autonomous vehicle technology company that counts some of the world’s leading institutions among its investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Qualcomm, Telefonica, and more. Cyngn’s flagship innovation is DriveMod, an autonomous driving solution that can be flexibly deployed on multiple vehicle types in various environments. The Company has been operating autonomous vehicles in production environments since 2017. In August, the organization filed confidentially for an Initial Public Offering.