Kodiak AI Names Lorie Boyd Chief People Officer as It Scales Driverless Trucks

A veteran of fast-growing tech companies

According to Kodiak, Boyd brings more than 30 years of experience in human resources and organizational leadership at companies including Turo, Salesforce, Oracle, Zendesk and Plume. In her new role she will oversee Kodiak's human resources strategy, covering talent acquisition, employee development, organizational effectiveness and company culture, as the company continues to scale its team.

Most recently, Boyd was Chief People Officer at Plume, where she led efforts to strengthen organizational culture and employee engagement during a period of leadership transition. Before that she spent nearly eight years at Turo, the peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace, first as Vice President of People and later as Chief People Officer. Kodiak says she helped guide Turo's people strategy through significant growth, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and preparations for an initial public offering.

Earlier, Boyd was Director of Recruiting at Zendesk, where she built and led the global recruiting team and helped grow the workforce from approximately 100 to nearly 900 employees worldwide. She also held leadership roles at Salesforce and Oracle. According to the announcement, she joined Salesforce as its 90th employee, before its IPO, and helped establish its human resources operations during early growth. She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Stanford University.

Succession after eight years

Boyd takes over from Zsuzsanna Major, who led Kodiak's people operations since the company's inception. Kodiak founder and CEO Don Burnette thanked Major for "all that she has built over the last eight years" and said her leadership and dedication helped shape the company's culture and laid a strong foundation for continued growth.

Burnette said of Boyd: "Lorie understands that our people are every bit as important as our technology." He added that her ability to bring out the best in employees, strengthen leadership and build a culture of collaboration will be critical as Kodiak enters its next phase of growth.

Boyd said in the release that autonomous trucking is changing how freight moves, and that the chance to help build the organization behind that transition was compelling for her. She pointed to the quality of Kodiak's team and its commitment to the company's mission as factors that stood out from her first conversation.

The business she joins

Kodiak says Boyd arrives as it prepares to launch long-haul driverless operations on public highways with shipper launch partner IKEA, while expanding commercial relationships with some of America's leading trucking fleets. The company's forward-looking statements note that the timing of the long-haul launch and of work on its highway launch safety case are expectations, not guarantees.

The Kodiak Driver, the company's vehicle-agnostic autonomous driving system, already operates in commercial driverless service in the Permian Basin. As of the end of the second quarter of 2026, Kodiak had deployed its technology in 35 driverless trucks with no humans in the cab.

The appointment signals that Kodiak is treating workforce growth and culture as part of its expansion plans. The company lists customers and partners including DTL Transport, Atlas Energy Solutions, IKEA, Bridgestone, Werner Enterprises, C.R. England, General Dynamics Land Systems and Roehl Transport. The release does not give hiring targets or headcount figures.