Michael Schön

Michael Schön. Senior Advisor & Investor (ex-Volvo Cars Tech Fund, ex-European Space Agency). My career sits at the intersection of three worlds: aerospace-grade rigor, automotive-scale execution, and deep-tech investing. Over 30+ years I’ve led complex, safety-critical programs, scaled technology platforms, and built partnerships that translate innovation into measurable outcomes.

At European Space Agency, ESA/ESTEC, I spent 15 years on missions such as Aeolus, EarthCARE, CryoSat, GOCE and ExoMars Rover, collaborating with NASA and JAXA. That environment trains you to think in systems: reliability, verification, risk burn-down, and decision gates.

At Volvo Cars, I then applied that discipline to automotive scale, leading 130+ engineers to develop the AI-based autonomous-drive core computer with NVIDIA. It now powers the EX90 and additional models, where safety, software, compute, and industrial constraints all collide.

Most recently, as Technical Director in corporate venture capital at Volvo Cars Tech Fund, I oversaw strategic investments across AI, advanced sensors, semiconductors, energy, robotics, smart manufacturing, mobility, and quantum. The work is end-to-end: thesis to pipeline, due diligence, pilots, partnership design, and scaling with the business—reviewing ~700+ startups/year and typically investing €1–5M at Seed through Series A/B.

I’m board-certified, a public speaker, and an ecosystem convener—focused on technologies that strengthen industrial competitiveness and resilience across Europe, the US, and APAC.