Former Waymo CFO jumps to self-driving startup Wayve
Elisa de Martel, who stepped down as Waymo's chief financial officer in January 2026, has been hired as chief financial officer at self-driving startup Wayve and will be based in Sunnyvale, California. Her predecessor at Wayve, Max Warburton, will move into a strategic advisory role supporting the company's leadership team.
Why It Matters
De Martel joins Wayve as it moves from development toward commercial deployment of both robotaxi and consumer automated-driving products, a pivotal phase that will require substantial financial planning and capital allocation. Her experience overseeing finance during Waymo's commercial rollout and fundraising is directly relevant to Wayve's shift toward higher-volume partnerships with automakers and service providers.
Key Facts
- New role: Elisa de Martel named CFO of Wayve
- Location: Based in Sunnyvale, California
- Previous role: CFO at Waymo from 2022 to January 2026
- Waymo funding while she was CFO: $5.6 billion Series C; valuation rose to over $45 billion
- Wayve valuation: About $8.5 billion
Elisa de Martel has been appointed chief financial officer at Wayve, the self-driving software startup, and will operate out of Sunnyvale, California. She replaces Max Warburton, who is transitioning to a strategic advisory position to support Wayve's executive team. In her new post, de Martel will handle the company's financial strategy, capital allocation, reporting, governance, treasury, and tax, and advise on commercial, investor, and strategic partnership matters.
De Martel brings a background in tech and manufacturing finance, including roles as CFO at Carbon and an 11-year tenure as manufacturing finance director at Apple. Most recently she served as Waymo's CFO from 2022 until January 2026, a period during which Waymo expanded commercial operations in multiple cities and completed a $5.6 billion Series C round led by its parent company that pushed its valuation above $45 billion.
Wayve, founded in 2017, has developed an end-to-end neural network driving stack that aims to operate without high-definition maps, custom hardware, or hand-coded rules. The company has raised $3.2 billion to date and is valued at roughly $8.5 billion. Its technology underpins two product lines: an assisted-driving system that requires a human "eyes on" and a fully automated "eyes off" system intended for robotaxis and consumer vehicles in defined environments.
The startup has secured partnerships with automakers including Nissan and Stellantis, and has been demonstrating limited public robotaxi operations — launching rides in London with safety operators on board and planning operations in Tokyo. Wayve now faces the challenge of moving from early deployments to becoming a high-volume supplier to the automotive industry, a transition de Martel's finance experience at a commercial-stage autonomous vehicle company is intended to support.
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