John Rich is the Director of Autonomous Vehicle Technologies at Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, a wholly owned Ford entity created in 2017 to bring autonomous vehicles and services to market.  The LLC also serves as the holding company for Ford’s interest in Argo AI, a leading full-stack AV technology developer.

Prior to his current role, Rich was Director of Global Strategy for Ford based in Dearborn, Michigan. He also held a long series of domestic and international positions within Ford’s Global Product Development and Manufacturing operations, including Director of Product Planning and Strategy for Ford in the Asia-Pacific region, Vehicle Line Director for Medium and Large Vehicles in China, and extensive experiences throughout Ford’s US Truck and Powertrain community. 

Rich started as an Engineer in Ford’s Engine Product and Manufacturing Engineering division as an engineer in 1990.  He is a former MITI (Japan) Manufacturing Technology Fellow and holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Boston University, a Master of Science in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.