About

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

The founder behind a Digital Experience Intelligence & Advisory practice, grounded in 17+ years inside a premium brand.

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 a Digital Experience Intelligence & Advisory practice. It helps organizations assess, benchmark, improve, and optimize their customer-facing digital experiences, grounded in 17+ years leading customer-facing digital experiences, analytics, benchmarking, and product organizations inside a premium brand. The guidance is vendor-neutral: there is no delivery team to staff, and no platform whose adoption the advice depends on. The structure of the business is the guarantee of the advice.

Experience

From vehicle diagnostics to the software-defined vehicle.

Seventeen years building connected-vehicle software inside German automotive, from diagnostics and regulated validation to leading the org that shipped GenAI and subscriptions to a million-plus cars. The advisory stands on it.

  1. Aull Ventures LLC

    2025–present

    Founder & Managing Consultant

    Raleigh, NC

    Vendor-neutral advisory on IVI, SDV, and connected-vehicle software.

  2. Mercedes-Benz R&D North America

    2018–2026

    Senior Engineering Manager / Deputy Director, Mobile & Connected Services

    2022–2026

    Long Beach, CA

    Owned platform delivery and the operating model for the mobile & connected-services ecosystem, 1M+ MAU, scaled to $100M+ digital revenue; led the org behind the first production GenAI launch to 900K+ vehicles in six weeks.

    Engineering Manager, Software Quality & Connected Car

    2020–2022

    Long Beach, CA

    Built the horizontal software-quality & release-governance org, 14-person team, $4.5M budget across IVI and connected services; releases 4 → 26 / year, cycle time −30%.

    Manager, System Integration & Technical Operations, Telematics & Infotainment Platform Delivery

    2018–2020

    Long Beach, CA

    Led system integration & technical ops for U.S. infotainment, telematics, mobile, and backend delivery, 8-person team; MBUX integration across a 50-vehicle fleet.

  3. Daimler AG

    2009–2018

    Principal Software QA Manager, Connected Car

    2015–2018

    Stuttgart

    Owned test strategy, lab-capability development, and release readiness for customer-facing connected-car features across European markets.

    Senior Development Engineer, Hardware/Software

    2009–2015

    Böblingen

    Built diagnostic routines for the smart EV onboard charger; drove software quality, reporting, and compliance for after-sales diagnostics systems.

  4. Earlier

    • 2006–2008 Porsche , Intern / Working Student, After-Sales IT Systems & Projects
    • 2005–2006 Magna , Working Student, Vehicle Safety Testing
    • 2000–2003 Bechtle , IT Specialist, Server & Storage and Networking Solutions

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

Clients, and the background behind them.

Advisory clients (Aull Ventures)

Operating background

  • Mercedes-Benz R&D North America
  • Daimler AG
  • Porsche
  • Magna
  • Bechtle

Where the experience was earned, not advisory engagements.

Put the record to work on your decision.

A 30-minute call, or a longer advisory engagement, independent either way.

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