Wayve has appointed Max Warburton as chief financial officer (CFO). Between 2020 and 2023, Max served as advisor to the board and head of special projects at Daimler and Mercedes-Benz, overseeing corporate strategy and reporting directly to the CEO.
With over 25 years of expertise in investment banking, equity research and corporate strategy, Warburton will work with Wayve’s executive team to accelerate growth and expand the company’s global footprint.
Warburton brings an extensive understanding of the automotive industry, through a distinguished career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Bernstein Research, covering the auto industry across Europe, the USA, and Asia. He was consistently ranked as the leading auto industry analyst globally, winning the Institutional Investor No.1 award for 14 separate years and being inducted into the Institutional Investor Hall of Fame. He held senior roles as managing director at both UBS and Bernstein and was made a managing partner at Alliance Bernstein in 2014.
He has also been a member of the board of YASA Motors, a startup developing axial flux electric motors, and acted as advisor to the board at Rimac Group, and as senior adviser to Kimmeridge Energy, a US private equity firm. Having advised Wayve on its automotive strategy over the past year, Warburton now joins the company as CFO, where he will help drive the next stages of growth and structure relationships with OEMs and other partners.
Alex Kendall, Wayve co-founder and CEO, said, “Max is a powerhouse in the auto industry, and we’re thrilled to welcome him as CFO. His insights have already been instrumental in establishing our go-to-market strategy, and I look forward to partnering with him to supercharge our commercial growth and scale the business globally.”
Wayve CFO Warburton added, “I have got to know Wayve in an advisory capacity over the last 12 months and have become increasingly convinced that its end-to-end approach to ADAS and automated driving will succeed technically and commercially. I am delighted to join Wayve as CFO and to support the next stages of the company’s development and value creation.”