Aurora Innovation Inc., a Strip District-based autonomous vehicle company, has appointed a Dallas-based executive to serve as the firm's next president.
Ossa Fisher is expected to join the company in February and will take on a role previously held by Aurora (NASDAQ: AUR) Co-Founder Chris Urmson, who will retain his CEO position.
To take on the new role, Fisher will vacate her current post as the president and chief operating officer at Dallas-based K-8 e-learning platform Istation, a position she has held since 2019 after previously serving as the company's chief marketing officer. Other prior jobs Fisher has had include serving as a senior vice president of strategy and analytics at Match Group Inc., as well as a partner at managing consultant firm Bain & Co.
"This will be a historic year for Aurora as we prepare our autonomous trucking fleet for commercial launch," Urmson said in a press release. "I’m confident Ossa’s experience and leadership will help us unlock greater efficiencies across our operations and further strengthen our existing relationships with industry-leading partners."
Fisher will join Aurora during a pivotal time in AV development. The company's former Strip District neighbor and industry peer, Argo AI LLC, shut down in October 2022 after its main investors — Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG — announced they'd no longer fund the company, which sent shockwaves throughout a niche industry that continues to require significant costs to run as the technology has yet to mature enough to support sustainable revenue streams.
Aurora also announced in late 2022 that it would be pushing back its timeline for the commercial deployment of its autonomous trucking product by a year, which is now expected to start running as a subscription service in 2024. As of market close on Monday, the company's stock has fallen by more than 84% since its IPO on Nov. 4, 2021, where shares opened at $11.25 a piece. They are currently trading at $1.73 each.
"We are on the cusp of an autonomous breakthrough that will transform how people and goods move through the world," Fisher said in a press release. "Aurora’s vision, commitment to safety and world-class partnerships have positioned the company to deliver an autonomous trucking product that will define the industry for years to come. I’m incredibly excited and humbled to join the Aurora team and be part of this journey."
The appointment of Fisher, who will remain based in Dallas, also builds on Aurora's continued expansion in Texas specifically and elsewhere other than Pittsburgh more broadly. The company is operating several autonomous testing routes with its shipping partners — which include FedEx, Werner and Uber Freight — along highway corridors in the Lone Star State. It has also built several shipping terminals throughout the state to help accommodate the shipping of these goods from its partners.
As for executive leadership, Urmson and Sterling Anderson, another co-founder and the company's chief product officer, are both based in the Bay Area of California. Meanwhile, the company's third co-founder and chief scientist Drew Bagnell, who resigned from the board last year, as well as Chief Financial Officer Richard Tame are the only executives based out of the company's headquarters on Smallman Street. Pittsburgh is also home to most of Aurora's 1,600-person workforce.
