K. Venkatesh Prasad and Rob Minton were appointed to the board of directors of the Connected Vehicle Trade Association (CVTA) in East Lansing.
The CVTA is a nonprofit business league established in 2004 to facilitate the interaction and advance the interests of groups involved in the vehicle communication market. The organization facilitates the collaboration of companies, organizations, and governmental bodies engaged in developing bidirectional vehicle communications.
K. Venkatesh Prasad, who goes by Prasad, serves as the senior vice president of Research and chief innovation officer at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor.
Prasad came to CAR after a 26-year career at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn. During his tenure at Ford, he held a broad range of leadership roles in research and development and innovation acceleration across Ford’s global vehicle components and systems engineering organization, and most recently in corporate strategy. During that time, he co-founded and led Ford’s Silicon Valley Labs in Palo Alto, Calif.
Prior to joining Ford, Prasad was a senior research scientist at the Ricoh California Research Center. Prasad earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Master of Science degree in electrical Engineering from Washington State University, both with an emphasis in computer engineering.
Minton has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry, including the last eight years with Geotab, a global commercial telematics provider.
As associate vice president, he leads business development focused on OEMs, rental/mobility companies, and others in the connected car space. Geotab has 50,000 customers in 160 countries, and more than 4 million connected vehicles on its platform.
Prior to that, Minton spent 12 years with General Motors Co. in Detroit in the areas of communications, sales, and marketing. His experience includes sales to fleet customers and fleet management companies.
Minton is a cancer survivor and underwent a life-saving stem cell transplant to combat a rare form of lymphoma. He volunteers with the National Marrow Donor Program to recruit more stem cell donors and share his experience with others who are considering a transplant themselves. Minton and his family reside in Oviedo, Fla.
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