Ismail Dagli to Become New Head of Continental’s Autonomous Mobility Business Area

Frankfurt am Main, September 20, 2023. Effective October 1, Dr. Ismail Dagli (48) will take charge of Continental’s Autonomous Mobility business area, succeeding Frank Petznick, who will leave the company at his own request at the end of September.

Since the beginning of 2022, Dagli has headed Continental’s Smart Mobility business area, which oversees business involving mobility services, fleet operators and commercial vehicle manufacturers within the Automotive group sector. The computer scientist earned his doctorate researching artificial intelligence in autonomous driving and started his career in 2005 as a development engineer for advanced driver assistance and active safety systems at Daimler. In 2008, he moved to Bosch, where he held various management positions in Germany and the United States. In 2020, Dagli joined Continental and took over as head of research and development within the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit. Following the realignment of the Automotive group sector at the beginning of 2022, this business unit was transferred to the Autonomous Mobility business area, which Dagli will now head.

“Ismail Dagli is an internationally experienced manager with extensive market and technology expertise in automated and autonomous driving. He will forge ahead with the partner-focused business strategy of our Autonomous Mobility business area with the aim of strengthening and expanding its market position technologically and commercially,” said Philipp von Hirschheydt, member of Continental’s Executive Board and head of the Automotive group sector.

When it comes to autonomous mobility, the company sees major growth opportunities in systems and components. Radar sensors in particular are attracting considerable interest worldwide. Besides confirmed orders for satellites and premium radars from a well-known carmaker, there is also further business-potential in parking features.

Furthermore, Continental’s partner-focused strategy has been validated by its customers’ interest in scalable, high-performance systems co-developed with Continental’s partner Ambarella, as well as in the partnership with Aurora, for which the Autonomous Mobility business area is supplying the entire hardware kit and fallback system.

“We would like to thank Frank Petznick, who over the past three years has helped us – through strategic partnerships with Ambarella, Horizon Robotics and Aurora – become one of the few full-range suppliers in advanced driver assistance systems and automated and autonomous driving. We wish him all the best for the future,” added von Hirschheydt.

Petznick took over as head of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business area at Continental at the beginning of August 2020. He holds a degree in electrical engineering and was previously responsible for the global Automated Driving Product Center as a member of the Electronics Executive Board at Hella; before that Petznick worked at Bertrandt AG and Volkswagen AG.