# Philipp Skogstad

> Philipp Skogstad runs Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America - the Sunnyvale-to-San-Jose corridor of the company that invented the car. A Stanford-trained engineer who once managed open innovation programs at SAP, he now oversees an 830-person R&D operation that ships Drive Pilot (the only SAE-certified Level 3 system on US roads), the MBUX infotainment stack, and Mercedes' ChatGPT-in-the-dashboard experiment.

- **Role:** President & CEO at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America
- **Organizations:** Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America (MBRDNA), Hitachi (Industrial AI Advisory Council), SAP (former), Stanford Center for Design Research (former)
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science, Saint Louis University, MS, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, PhD, Engineering Design / Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, MBA, University of St. Gallen (Switzerland)
- **Known for:** Leads MBRDNA, the ~830-person US R&D arm of Mercedes-Benz spanning San Jose, Sunnyvale, Long Beach, Redford and Seattle, Oversaw Mercedes' integration of ChatGPT into the MBUX infotainment system, rolled out to 900,000+ vehicles as a beta, Stewarded Drive Pilot - the first and only SAE-certified Level 3 conditional automated driving system approved on US public roads (Nevada and California)

## Career timeline

- **2005-2009** — PhD researcher at Stanford, studying high-performance engineering design teams
- **Post-2009** — Post-doc, Center for Design Research (CDR), Stanford
- **SAP era** — Senior Director of Open Innovation; Head of Silicon Valley Next Talent Program; Chief of Staff to SAP's Chief Design Officer; VP roles
- **Present** — President & CEO, Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America
- **Present** — Member, Industrial AI Advisory Council, Hitachi

## Achievements

- Leads MBRDNA, the ~830-person US R&D arm of Mercedes-Benz spanning San Jose, Sunnyvale, Long Beach, Redford and Seattle
- Oversaw Mercedes' integration of ChatGPT into the MBUX infotainment system, rolled out to 900,000+ vehicles as a beta
- Stewarded Drive Pilot - the first and only SAE-certified Level 3 conditional automated driving system approved on US public roads (Nevada and California)
- PhD from Stanford in engineering design with research on how to build and run high-performing design teams
- Bridged Mercedes' Silicon Valley engineering with Stuttgart product cycles

## Latest updates

- **2024-01** — Demonstrated upgraded ChatGPT-powered MBUX voice assistant at CES.
- **2025-01** — Posted publicly about operational-excellence transformation at MBRDNA.

## Links

- Website: https://mbrdna.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippskogstad
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/philippskogstad

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/philipp-skogstad
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-30