Phil Michel is the Senior Vice President of Autonomy & AI at Motional, responsible for the science, engineering, and strategic direction behind Motional’s autonomous driving technology.
Previously, Phil held senior technical leadership roles at Cruise and General Motors, driving AI strategy and execution across autonomy, simulation, data, and testing. Phil also led autonomy science, engineering, and product teams at Amazon, helping scale autonomous delivery across four U.S. states. He built Toyota Research Institute’s machine learning organization, advised Toyota Motor Corporation on global AI strategy, and developed advanced robotic perception systems at Google/X. He also served as a Project Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo.
Phil began his career in finance as a derivatives trader and spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo trading index volatility before going on to lead quantitative volatility trading across Asia. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and his B.A. and M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.