Wayve has appointed Elisa de Martel, who ran Waymo’s finances for more than three years until January, as Chief Financial Officer, the company said, bringing in an executive who took the Alphabet robotaxi business from pre-revenue to hundreds of thousands of weekly trips.
Elisa de Martel replaces Max Warburton, Chief Financial Officer since 2024, who moves to a strategic advisory role supporting the leadership team.
“AV2.0 is an innovative, capital-efficient approach to autonomy, and I’m looking forward to scaling the AI Driver globally with our team and partners,” de Martel said in the announcement. “As a road cyclist myself, safer roads matter to me personally.”
A Career That Started in Cars
De Martel’s first job in the industry was at PSA Peugeot Citroën, where she was Finance Manager for Citroën in Britain from 1999 to 2006, after a period at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
PSA is now part of Stellantis, one of Wayve’s two carmaker partners.
Wayve’s software goes into the group’s STLA AutoDrive system for North America in 2028, and Stellantis is building Level 4-ready platforms for a robotaxi programme with Wayve and Uber announced in June.
She spent the following eleven years at Apple in senior finance roles including manufacturing finance, also in Britain, before moving to California in 2017 as Chief Financial Officer of Carbon, the industrial 3D printing company.
There she led a $260 million Series D, helped take revenue past $100 million and improved gross margin by more than 60%, Wayve said.
She holds a master’s degree in political economy from the University of Essex.
What She Ran at Waymo
De Martel joined Waymo as Chief Financial Officer in September 2022 and left in January 2026.
Her brief went beyond finance.
Wayve said she led financial strategy and capital planning as well as operational facilities, indirect procurement and systems, and that during her tenure Waymo grew from pre-revenue to hundreds of thousands of weekly trips across five American cities.
She led the $5.6 billion Series C in October 2024, which took Waymo’s valuation past $45 billion.
She left before the February 2026 round, in which Waymo raised $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation, and before the expansion that took it from five cities to fifteen.
Since January she has worked independently, advising technology companies and boards on financial strategy and capitalisation.
Why Now
“I couldn’t be more excited about the experience and passion Elisa brings in autonomy and deep tech,” said Alex Kendall, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, “as we launch the Wayve AI Driver in millions of vehicles across the automotive and mobility industry.”
Wayve and Uber launched supervised autonomous rides in London on September 3, the first time autonomous trips have been available in Britain.
Riders requesting an UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort may be matched with a Wayve ride at no extra cost, in an all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E fitted with the Wayve AI Driver and surround sensors, with a safety operator on board. Wayve says Tokyo will follow.
It is valued at about $8.6 billion after a $1.2 billion Series D in February, roughly a fifteenth of Waymo.
Kendall credited Warburton with that round, with the partnerships signed in the past year with Uber, Nissan, Stellantis and Qualcomm, and with the London launch. “Max has truly been instrumental in building Wayve’s financial foundation to help us reach this pivotal moment,” he said.
