Secondmind has appointed automotive industry leader Kai Voigt as a strategic advisor to the company. Voigt, who brings decades of automotive engineering experience at leading mobility technology companies, will increase the depth of Secondmind expertise in automotive design and development. He will help the company differentiate its next-generation model-based design solutions that today help car makers like Mazda significantly optimize the design and performance of complex systems, and ensure sustainable design and development of the software defined vehicle. Voigt will work closely with Secondmind senior leadership to bring further fuel to the company’s product strategy and go-to-market planning.

As former Executive Vice President at AVL, a leader in development, simulation and testing in the automotive sector, Voigt was responsible for technology and operations in Instrumentation and Test Systems, overseeing the company’s product and solutions portfolio, R&D, operations and after sales. Prior to AVL, Voigt was Vice President at Horiba Automotive Test Systems Inc, where he defined and implemented product line strategies for software and mechatronics product lines.

An engineer by trade, and at heart, Voigt holds a Diplom-Ingenieur (Dipl.-Ing) engineering degree from Technische Universität Darmstadt, and is skilled in product development, electric vehicles, engineering, and strategy development. Through his private consultancy, he provides strategic guidance to startups and well-established companies in the automotive testing domain, and to private equity and venture capital firms.

Kai Voigt said: “For much of my career, I have been focused on integrating emerging, leading-edge technologies to improve design and development efficiency in the automotive industry. I was excited to learn how Secondmind experiment design and optimization solutions are empowering engineering teams to dramatically cut time and materials cost in design and development with unique, data-efficient Active Learning technology that blends engineering subject matter expertise with algorithmic intelligence. I am looking forward to working with the Secondmind team and helping shape the company’s future product strategy.”

Gary Brotman, CEO at Secondmind, said: “Kai is an incredibly insightful and passionate leader whose depth of expertise in automotive engineering and keen product instincts will help us further differentiate Secondmind solutions in the automotive sector. He understands the massive efficiencies our Active Learning-powered solutions are creating for car makers today in model-based calibration and system design, and the impact we will have in catalyzing sustainable product development processes for the software defined vehicle. The leadership team and I are very excited to have Kai in the mix at Secondmind and we are looking forward to a productive and rewarding collaboration.”