About

17+ years building connected-vehicle software. Now advising without an agenda.

Stephan Aull, Founder & Managing Consultant. Raleigh, NC.

Stephan Aull, Founder & Managing Consultant of Aull Ventures

The short version

An independent advisory practice.

Aull Ventures is an independent advisory practice. It gives OEMs, suppliers, startups, and investors vendor-neutral guidance on automotive software — IVI, SDV, connected-vehicle platforms — from someone who built and shipped exactly that. No delivery team to staff, no platform to license. The structure of the business is the guarantee of the advice.

The record

What shipped, and where.

Stephan spent 17+ years inside premium automotive R&D — Daimler AG in Germany, then Mercedes-Benz R&D in North America, from 2009 to 2026. His most recent role: Senior Engineering Manager and Deputy Director over a mobile, AI, and connected-services platform. He led a 26-person multi-geo org, served as acting Director over 87 engineers across seven teams, owned a $10M+ portfolio, and delivered to more than two million users.

He owned the U.S. delivery path for the first OEM production conversational GenAI launch — 900K+ vehicles activated in six weeks. He owned the feature-flag and entitlement architecture governing progressive rollout across 1M+ connected vehicles. He helped turn the brand's app from a utility into a $100M+ consumer subscription platform: entitlements, commerce, paid journeys.

Earlier, as Engineering Manager for software QA, he scaled releases from 4 to 26 a year, lifted throughput from 28 to 54, and cut release cycle time by 30%. He led MBUX infotainment integration across a 50-vehicle fleet and spoke on infotainment technology to top U.S. journalists at the S-Class and EQS launches. Before North America, at Daimler in Germany, he worked on connected-car, diagnostics, eCall, and regulated validation.

Proof points

The record, at a glance.

  • First OEM production conversational GenAI, shipped.

    Owned the U.S. delivery path that activated 900K+ vehicles in 6 weeks.

  • 1M+ connected vehicles under managed rollout.

    Owned the feature-flag and entitlement architecture governing progressive rollout, beta, and experimentation.

  • A $100M+ subscription platform.

    Helped turn a premium OEM's app from a utility into a paid consumer revenue platform — entitlements, commerce, paid journeys.

  • 2M+ users served; $10M+ portfolio owned.

    Across a 26-person multi-geo org, with acting-Director responsibility for 87 engineers in 7 teams.

  • Releases scaled 4 → 26 per year, cycle time cut 30%.

    Connected-car and multilingual voice-command test automation at production scale.

  • $1.5M secured, 6 months saved.

    Won additional funding and a dedicated U.S. backend; cut feature timelines by up to half a year.

  • MBUX infotainment, integrated and launched.

    Led HW/SW integration across a 50-vehicle fleet on a $2.4M budget; public infotainment-tech speaker for S-Class and EQS launches.

  • Credentialed where it counts.

    Stanford AI-Driven Leadership; ISTQB Certified Test Manager; Lean & Agile Advanced Practitioner; Scrum Master.

How he works

Specific over sweeping.

Candid when the plan is wrong, and clear about why. Comfortable saying "that won't work" and "you don't need to build this" — because there's no backlog the answer has to protect. The depth is current: AAOS/AOSP, IVI/MBUX, connected-vehicle backends, OTA, GenAI operations, AWS and Azure.

Credentials

Trained in Germany, certified where it counts.

Stanford AI-Driven Leadership. ISTQB Certified Test Manager. Lean & Agile Advanced Practitioner. Scrum Master. B.S. in Industrial Engineering & Management with an EE/CS emphasis, studied in Germany.

Selected references

Where the work happens.

Current advisory clients, plus the confidential and expert-network engagements that stay anonymized by agreement.

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