Rickard Martensson is no stranger to big moves. But his most recent one, both professionally and geographically, may be the boldest yet.
In early 2025, Rickard relocated to Abu Dhabi to take on a new challenge as Head of Business Development at SteerAI, a startup building autonomous mobility solutions for the logistics and defense sectors.
Originally from Sweden, Rickard brings with him a mix of consulting experience, startup energy, and a deep fascination for how technology can transform lives.
His path into the world of autonomous vehicles began four years ago when he joined a Swedish self-driving company called Einride, then a 60-person startup. By the time he left, the company had grown to more than 500 employees, and Rickard had developed a clear view of the possibilities and bottlenecks in the sector.
Now, he’s applying that experience at SteerAI, drawn by the promise of building a venture from the ground up. “What’s exciting here is the opportunity to move quickly,” he says. “The technology has come so far in recent years, from machine learning to simulation tools, that you no longer need massive teams to make serious progress.”
His remit at SteerAI is broad. He focused on commercial strategy, marketing, and most importantly, working closely with customers and partners to identify pain points and ensure the company is building solutions that matter.
“My day-to-day is about listening,” he explains. “Understanding real-world problems, feeding those back to the product team, and helping us prioritize what to build next.”
While the pace of startup life is familiar, the region is new. This is Rickard’s first time living in the Middle East, after his earlier stints in Houston, Singapore, Norway, Australia, and the UK.
For him, the UAE offers a particularly fertile testing ground, thanks to its forward-looking regulatory environment and the fact that the market isn’t yet saturated like the U.S., Europe, or China.
What drives Rickard is the sweeping impact he believes autonomous mobility can have on society.
“Getting the driver out of the vehicle changes everything,” he says. “You can reduce congestion, cut emissions, make roads safer, and fundamentally rethink logistics. It’s one of the few technologies that can truly transform the way the world works.”
He thinks the potential extends beyond efficiency and sees autonomy as a force with geopolitical and even peacekeeping implications, especially in the defense context.
“If one person can control 200 autonomous vehicles, then it’s not about how many troops a country has anymore. It shifts the balance of power, and it might just make armed conflict less attractive.”
Before he discovered his passion for autonomous mobility, Rickard’s path was more open-ended. He trained as a pilot, then earned dual master’s degrees in industrial engineering and finance. He joined McKinsey as a consultant, partly, he admits, because he didn’t yet know what he wanted to do.
“Consulting was a way not to choose,” he says. “But what I’ve always loved is solving complex problems. The more difficult, the better.”
Autonomous mobility, then, is a natural fit as a field that combines tech, hardware, and industrial systems, all in service of solving large-scale challenges.
For instance, he explains that although warehouses and factories are both fully automated, between the two there’s still someone driving a 30-year-old truck who is sending updates on WhatsApp. It’s a big gap that is ripe for innovation, he says.
Now at SteerAI, Rickard is laser-focused on closing that gap, with speed, strategy and purpose.
“We’re not building tech for tech’s sake,” he says. “We’re building it to make a real difference.”
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Make the move
SteerAI is designed to turn standard industrial and defense vehicles into autonomous machines that can handle complex operations.
