Lucid has appointed Mike Molino as Vice President of Finance, recruiting him from Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, where he spent more than seven years as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer.
Molino announced the move himself on LinkedIn on Thursday, writing that he was joining “at a pivotal moment in Lucid’s journey, with an emphasis on disciplined execution, operational excellence, growth, profitability, and long-term value creation.”
His profile lists the role as beginning in August, based in Newark, California.
He arrives in the same month that Gagan Dhingra, Lucid‘s Senior VPof finance and Accounting and its Principal Accounting Officer, left the company.
Dhingra’s departure was effective August 14 and was disclosed in the company’s quarterly report filed on August 4, which said he was leaving to pursue another opportunity and that the exit did not stem from any disagreement over operations, policy, financial disclosure, accounting or legal matters.
Who Molino Is
He has spent almost his entire career inside the Mercedes-Benz organisation — about eighteen years and eight months across three entities, beginning in November 2006.
At Mercedes-Benz USA he was a budget specialist in marketing for two years, then controller for the Mercedes-Benz Hybrid unit, where his profile says he implemented Daimler finance and controlling systems following the DaimlerChrysler demerger.
He moved to Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America as corporate controller in January 2010, running planning, controlling, accounting, procurement, payroll and corporate compliance.
After a break of about a year he returned in January 2013 as CFO and Senior Manager for Finance, Controlling and Procurement, and in January 2019 became CFO and Chief Operating Officer, head of finance and operations, with responsibility extending beyond finance into workplace services.
He held that role for seven years and seven months, until July.
The Job He Is Joining
Chief executive Silvio Napoli has spent his first months compressing the company’s structure.
On July 2, in his second month, Napoli introduced an organisation that halved the number of executives reporting directly to him.
“To enforce accountability and foster transparency, we introduced a true C-suite to lead the company,” he told analysts on the second-quarter call. “To accelerate decision-making, we’re greatly reducing the number of committees except for legally mandatory ones.”
The August 4 results restated it, describing a structure that “halves the number of direct reports to the CEO and places experienced leaders in key roles across finance, technology, customer experience, transformation, digital and program execution.”
That intake included Alexander De Bock as chief financial officer, appointed July 1 from Metalsa; Raja Ramana Macha as chief technology officer, from Eaton; Billy Hayes as chief customer officer, from Nissan and Stellantis; and Hugo Martinho as chief transformation officer.
The same period brought the elimination of the chief operating officer position on June 22, ending Marc Winterhoff’s tenure — as first reported by EV — and a reduction of approximately 18% of the US workforce for annualised savings of about $158 million.
Napoli told analysts the company had identified $1.4 billion in cash-flow improvements for this year.
What Dhingra’s Exit Removes
Dhingra was the continuity in Lucid‘s finance function, and his four years and eight months spanned four chief financial officers.
He joined on December 13, 2021 as VP of Accounting and Internal Controls on a $330,000 base salary with a 50% target bonus, and was designated principal accounting officer two days later, reporting to then chief financial officer Sherry House.
He came from Anaplan, where he had been principal accounting officer, and before that Seagate, McKesson and Ernst & Young.
When House resigned in December 2023 he took the interim chief financial officer role alongside his own, holding it for fourteen months on terms that included $500,000 in restricted stock units, a $68,000 appointment bonus, a $50,000 quarterly bonus and a $25,000 monthly stipend.
He handed the seat to Taoufiq Boussaid in February 2025 and was promoted to Senior VP, Finance and Accounting, remaining Principal Accounting Officer.
Since September 2025 he has also sat on the advisory board of Accordance, a role his profile lists as concurrent with Lucid.
As of Friday morning his LinkedIn still showed the Lucid position as current.
