Joby’s New Board of Directors and SPAC Offering Details

Joby Aero announced on July 23rd the composition of its Board of Directors in anticipation of the company’s merger with Reinvent Technology Partners, a special purpose acquisition company that is reported to take a “venture capital at scale” approach to partnering with bold leaders and companies. Upon the closing of the transaction, the combined company will trade as JOBY on the NYSE. In conjunction with the transaction, notable members were also named to the board, including Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Co-Founder and the Co-Lead Director of Reinvent Technology Partners (RTP). Hoffman currently sits on the boards of companies such as Microsoft and Aurora. 

Next, Halimah DeLaine Prado, General Counsel, Google. Halimah has spent 15 years at Google, working on some of the most complex and important legal issues of the digital age, including a variety of projects at Google X. Prior to her current position, Halimah was a Vice President of Legal, managing a global team providing counsel across Google’s products, including Ads, Search, Cloud, Hardware, Platforms & Ecosystems, and YouTube.

Finally, Laura Wright, former CFO, Southwest Airlines, is reported to be joining the board. Laura has significant experience managing airline finances and operations, having helped to establish Southwest as one of the top US airlines across a 25 year tenure at the company. Her experience of leading an airline through a period of high growth will be particularly relevant to Joby as it seeks to establish and rapidly grow an aerial ridesharing service beginning in 2024.

Commenting on the recent appointments, JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, said, “We are incredibly humbled to have been able to assemble such a remarkable and diverse group of world-class leaders to guide and support Joby as we plan to enter the public market.”

Earlier this week, RTP announced that an Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders has been scheduled for August 5, 2021 to vote on the approval and adoption of RTP’s business combination with Joby.

Why it’s important: Joby Aviation is adding lauded members of a variety of companies to their Board of Directors, enabling the company to continue their growth and expansion plans to deploy on demand aerial mobility services by 2024 at scale.