Vania La Rocca

Starting in 2023, leading strategy, roadmap, and execution of AI & GenAI portfolio. Promoted 4 times in 8 years due to superior performance. 2 times recipient of Cerence AI "Formula One Club Award", recognizing top performers. 5 times recipient of Cerence AI internal "CEO Spot Award" for sales performance.

• Strategic partner to the CPO, pivoted the corporate product strategy to Generative AI, resulting in a 2x improvement in SaaS revenue projections through the launch of next-gen voice and conversational experiences for global automotive OEMs - including the industry-first ChatGPT integration for Volkswagen (presented at CES 2024).
• Engineered and launched Cerence xUI, an agentic hybrid edge-cloud LLM platform that secured the "2025 AutoTech AI Solution of the Year" by AutoTech and Gizmodo Editors' Pick at CES 2026 for "Best Automotive Voice Control"
• Established a strategic partnership with Microsoft to deliver industry-first automotive Small Language Models (SLMs), achieving low-latency embedded GenAI for in-car environments.
• Expanded partnership with Microsoft to launch first to market integration of Microsoft Copilot and 365 Suite as part of agentic in-car voice experience.
• Accelerated product adoption by directing global sales support and defining competitive positioning and product messaging for major international industry events like CES, IAA and the Shanghai Auto Show.
• Optimized the global innovation pipeline by leading and operationalizing the phase-gate and productization funnel, directly influencing C-level investment and divestment decisions across a multi-disciplinary team of PMs, engineers, and AI researchers - increasing productization throughput by 20%.
• Defined and executed global pricing strategies for both royalty and SaaS models, maximizing market alignment and revenue capture across a diverse product portfolio.
• Directly managed a team of up to 8 Product Managers and Partnership Leads, while providing cross-functional direction to 300+ engineers, researchers and project managers.

Previously at Cerence AI (2017 – 2023): Senior Principal PM | Principal PM | Senior PM

Owned vision, strategy, and execution for the Text-to-Speech product line, including roadmap definition, market research, and cross-functional delivery.

• Scaled the Text-to-Speech (TTS) product line to 25% of total company revenue, managing the full lifecycle of ML-powered products deployed in 400M+ vehicles globally.
• Led the industry transition to Neural TTS across cloud and edge environments, delivering the first-ever embedded Neural TTS solution.
• Expanded market footprint beyond automotive into consumer electronics and smart mobility by managing a global cross-functional team of 100+ members.

• Managed a 15+ member team to deliver IoT-based fleet management solutions for a top off-road OEM.
• Owned full lifecycle from firmware to cloud/web apps, enabling advanced telematics adoption.

• Supported sales of AUTOSAR 4.x embedded software and led technical evaluations to secure key customer deals.

• Key contributor to the world's first Linux + AUTOSAR infotainment system for BMW.
• Directed joint BMW-Marelli teams (up to 11 engineers) to deliver next-gen software with zero critical system failures at launch. Owned deployment of core system features (Lifecycle, Power Management, Watchdog) into production.