Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics hires ex-Ford EV chief Doug Field

In a big coup for Mind Robotics, the industrial robotics startup spun out of Rivian ( RIVN ) announced it has hired former Ford ( F ) EV chief Doug Field as its president.

Ford announced Field's exit six months ago, and now Mind Robotics gets one of the auto industry's most experienced hardware engineers, who also cut his teeth at Tesla.

The hire comes as Mind attempts to harness AI trained on Rivian's factory floor into robots it can sell to the wider manufacturing world.

Field will oversee product, engineering, and operations and will work alongside Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, who founded Mind and chairs its board, according to a press release on Tuesday. Mind didn't disclose his pay or start date.

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"Doug is a remarkable leader with a track record of delivering new technologies in successful products," Scaringe said in a statement. "He has an incredible ability to foster great teams that take on big, complex ideas."

Field's resume reads like a who's who of the biggest tech companies. He led Mac hardware engineering at Apple ( AAPL ), then ran engineering at Tesla ( TSLA ) as senior vice president and oversaw development of the Model 3. He later went back to Apple to lead its Special Projects Group, widely reported to be home to the company's secretive car effort, before rejoining Ford in 2021.

At Ford, Field rose to chief EV, digital and design officer, reporting to CEO Jim Farley. He was behind the skunkworks team that built the automaker's low-cost Universal EV platform . His exit came in a broader leadership shake-up that folded his team into a new product creation and industrialization organization under COO Kumar Galhotra.

"Integrating AI and robotics is one of the most important — and difficult — engineering challenges of our time," Field said in the statement. "I'm thrilled to join RJ in building a team, culture, and technology that will redefine what we can make in America."

Mind Robotics was founded last year and was first disclosed to Rivian in November. The startup is building AI foundation models, robots, and deployment infrastructure for industrial automation.

Rivian is its first customer and launch partner, giving Mind a high-volume factory where it can train and deploy its robots. Rivian also kept a minority stake in the company.

Mind has raised more than $1 billion, including a $500 million Series A co-led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz in March, and a $400 million round led by Kleiner Perkins in May, which valued the company at more than $3 billion, per the Wall Street Journal .