After almost two decades at Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), Lori Heino-Royer has joined Plus, formerly Plus.ai, as senior director of strategic partnerships. Heino-Royer will aim to leverage her understanding of the trucking business to help cultivate and manage relationships with fleet and other industry partners.
“Lori is joining Plus at a very exciting time as we begin mass production of our autonomous driving system this quarter,” said Shawn Kerrigan, COO and co-founder of Plus. “She has learned the trucking business from the ground up at one of the best truck manufacturers in the world and will be a tremendous resource to our team and all fleets and partners we work with in our global deployment.”
Heino-Royer started her career at DTNA in the finance and operations functions, then assumed more leadership responsibilities in the business innovation and strategy group. Later, she championed a cross-functional team in the development of autonomous truck business models and spearheaded opportunities that helped the company expand its customer-focused digital offerings.
“Having worked in the trucking industry for almost two decades, I have so much respect for everything that goes into making it possible to move commercial goods smoothly and safely from one destination to another,” said Heino-Royer.
In her new role, Heino-Royer will report to Chuck Joseph, vice president of strategic partnerships, who formerly served as a senior executive in Amazon’s Middle Mile Transportation organization, where he led business development and mergers and acquisition activities related to the logistics industry, including automated driving technology.
“Autonomous trucks will revolutionize the trucking industry and joining Plus now provides me the unique opportunity to shape how the technology is rolled out, working closely with our trucking partners, fleets, and other industry peers,” Heino-Royer said .
