'5+1' with Corinne Aaron – Chief Marketing Officer at Einride

Recently, we announced Corinne Aaron as Einride's new Chief Marketing Officer. We now had the privilege of interviewing Corinne for our 5+1 interview series. She is a highly accomplished marketing professional with nearly two decades of global experience. With a proven track record of success in leadership roles, including as the Chief Marketing Officer at Lynk & Co and the Head of Marketing, EMEA at Tesla for 6 years, she has solidified her reputation as a true powerhouse in the industry. Now we are learning more about Corinne’s new position at Einride as well as her vision for Einride’s marketing strategies and plans to position the company as a frontrunner in the freight mobility industry. Moreover, we get to know Einride’s efforts towards promoting gender equality and diversity, Corinne’s insights of building a successful career as a woman in the mobility industry, and her vision on the future of freight mobility and Einride's role in shaping it.

1. Recently you became Einride's new Chief Marketing Officer. What does your job involve and what is it that drives you?

As a global marketing leader, I have always sought to combine my interest in creativity with my passion for promoting products that can make a difference in society. As the CMO of Einride, I have the chance to combine my dedication for innovation in cleantech with my experience in scaling brands within the EV and automobile industries. I’ve had the incredible honor to take over talented teams across Marketing, Communications and Design from Einride’s co-founder and deputy CEO Linnéa Kornehed Falck, who set the foundation for Einride to grow into a globally recognised brand. My job now is to guide and propel the Einride brand forward, to keep on making Einride a household name in sustainable freight mobility and to ensure we can continue to create a lasting impact on a greener, more intelligent future.

2. Can you tell us about your vision for Einride's marketing strategies and how you plan to leverage your experience to drive the company's growth in the autonomous and electric transport industry and position Einride as a leader in the freight mobility industry?

Over the past ten years, I’ve worked with products or solutions that were going to market as groundbreaking solutions. During my time at Tesla, electric cars were an entirely new concept, at Lynk & Co we were promoting car sharing and car ownership through a subscription model, at Lovevery we were introducing stage-based baby products through a home-delivered subscription model. And now at Einride, we are not only introducing the world to an autonomous transportation solution, but we’re also allowing shippers and carriers to go fully electric now. The common thread through all of these career moves is that all new concepts take a lot of education and explanation to make a breakthrough. So I see my first task at Einride as not only being about growing our brand awareness, but also being about grounding our work in finding ways to educate the market on why this is a service they need to act on, and fast. With many countries imposing sustainability deadlines for heavy duty transport emissions to be drastically reduced as early as 2030, it's even more crucial we deploy and scale our technology efficiently. We’re expanding across multiple, diversified markets so the challenge also lies in how we find ways to tell the same message to different audiences across the globe. 

3. As we all know the mobility industry is still dominated by men. What is Einride doing to push gender equality and diversity forward?

The business world overall and the mobility industry in particular still have to catch up in terms of female leadership, and throughout my career I’ve been fortunate to work within teams that are trying to make sure that happens – including Einride. We are already relatively diverse throughout the company and have impressive female colleagues in all areas – which may also be due to the fact that Sweden has just once again landed in first place in the ranking of all EU member states in the gender equality index.

Of course, we obviously try to pay attention to the minority gender when recruiting for certain teams, but beyond that, it is especially important to us to ensure that we create inspiring roles for everyone and to create awareness of the industry among women at an early stage. For example, the first person we hired in the newly created role of our remote operators was Tiffany Heathcott. To make these roles and stories visible, we portray colleagues like her on our brand channels and are also involved in various events, including those that are specifically aimed at women – such as Camp Vera at Chalmers University or the Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day organized by Womengineer foundation is organised and takes place in various Swedish locations as well as digitally.

4. How has it been building a career as a woman in the mobility industry?

I've led marketing and communications at some of the most innovative brands across a host of industries — including Lynk & Co and Tesla in the mobility space. What I’ve learned is that empowerment starts with visibility. Women have made significant progress in striving for equality, but there are still many barriers that prevent us from advancing in our careers, like outdated biases, institutional barriers, or lack of support – which is often further amplified after motherhood. 

For me, visibility is about making sure our voices are heard, our contributions are recognised, and our ideas are valued. When we're visible, we can challenge stereotypes. Therefore we need to connect and support other women who may only be starting out. Research shows that women who received mentoring were promoted five times more often than those who didn't have mentors. Looking back, growing up on a tiny Caribbean island, I wish I had a mentor as I was advancing my career, so I decided to leverage my experiences in the industry and mentor other young women in areas including marketing, tech and general business (e.g. through Roots Inspire, AmplifyHER and Women’s Visibility Week). Other female leaders at Einride and among my contacts are involved in the same way across a variety of networks and I really think empowering each other and paying it forward to future women leaders is one of the best ways to have an impact on a diverse and inclusive workplace culture. 

5. In the realm of autonomous and electric transport – how do you envision the future of freight mobility and what role will Einride play in shaping that future?

At Einride we often say: the future is yours to create. We want to shape the future through technology and strive for a better tomorrow. In everything, we want to push the limits of what is possible – in our products, software, operations, or design. Our company is built on our team’s passion for innovation and the belief that the freight industry needs a disruptive shift: We need innovation and modernization all across the sector, in aspects such as the business models, the vehicles, the energy sources and more. We need to increase connectivity and focus on logistics rather than transport from A to B. As if that wasn’t challenging enough, the freight industry needs to decarbonise its operations, become safer and reach for Vision Zero, and also to solve the competence issue caused by the global lack of drivers. 

By rethinking road freight from scratch, Einride has developed a solution that has the potential to revolutionie transport by being both cost competitive and sustainable. We see the road to total electrification from a long term perspective but are positive that the masses have now either understood the importance of, or made the leap from diesel powered vehicles to electric which further fuels the interest and understanding that the same needs to happen for heavy haulage. Road transport accounts for seven percent of global carbon emissions, but we can already prove with our existing customer base today that it’s possible to save up to 95% CO₂e when switching from diesel-based freight operations to shipping with Einride, which is creating a strong demand for our products and services. Shippers across the world are looking for simple and cost-effective ways to make that transition, and that's where we come in as a transformation partner. With our ecosystem approach of providing an end to end solution, including vehicles, infrastructure, intelligent software and services, we reduce the complexity and costly overhead investments. Einride handles all facets of digitalisation, electrification and automation – so shippers can unlock efficiencies and drastically curb their CO₂e emissions. 

And the +1 question from Corinne to you:

“At Einride, our mission is to design and develop intelligent technologies for movement – what does intelligent movement mean to you?”

Thank you Corinne, for the informative '5+1' interview.
Discover more inspiring women in the industry by exploring our elle category and the 5+1 interviews in our magazine.

Pictures: Einride