Derek Richards

Derek is a seasoned automotive and electric vehicle veteran with more than three decades of experience. Prior to Wrightspeed, Derek served at General Motors (GM) in a variety of engineering and managerial positions.

Most recently he served as the company’s Advanced Vehicle Performance Manager for electric trucks including the HUMMER EV, Chevrolet BEV pickup and BEV Escalade, as well as the Volt/Velite5 passenger car models.

In his career, Richards also served for 4 years on international assignments in both Thailand and Japan. He was GM’s international Vehicle Chief Engineer of the Global Chevrolet Colorado and Trailblazer for the entire launch at the GM Rayong Plant in Thailand. Prior to that he was the Global Vehicle Performance, Validation & Quality Executive for the same program in a Joint Venture development with Isuzu Japan.

Derek holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from GMI Engineering & Management Institute (Kettering University) and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University.