Board of Directors

Mo Chen is our co-founder and has served as our Executive Chairman since September 2020 and as a member of our Board of Directors since our inception in 2015. Mr. Chen served as our Chief Executive Officer from our inception in 2015 to September 2020. Prior to founding our company, Mr. Chen served as founder and Chief Executive Officer at Deep Blue Brothers, an online gaming platform. Prior to that, he served as founder of startups in the fields of traditional and online advertising and used car online marketplace. He has more than 12 years of entrepreneurship and management experience.

Dr. Xiaodi Hou co-founded TuSimple in 2015 and serves as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Xiaodi Hou is an internationally renowned expert in artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision. Dr. Xiaodi Hou currently holds 13 patents in the field of autonomous vehicles. In the field of computer vision, Mr. Hou has developed leading theories in computational models for visual saliency. He earned a Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems from the California institute of Technology and holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Xiaodi Hou has presented at global events such as Web Summit and Nvidia’s GTC conference and has been featured in leading publications such as Wired and Forbes.

Cheng Lu is the President and Chief Executive Officer of TuSimple. He has over 13 years of experience in strategy and corporate finance in the U.S. and Asia. Prior to TuSimple, Cheng Lu co-founded and was a Partner and Chief Operating Officer of KCA Capital Partners, a Pan-Asian growth equity investment fund. Prior, Cheng Lu was with HOPU Investments and CITIC Capital based in Beijing and Cerberus Capital Management in New York focused on private equity and special situation investments. He started his career in the investment banking division of Citigroup in New York.

Brad Buss serves on the board of QuantumScape, Marvell and Aecom, and served on the board of Tesla from 2009 to 2019.

He retired as the Chief Financial Officer of SolarCity Corporation in 2016 and prior to that role served as the Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer of Cypress Semiconductor from 2005 to 2014. He also held prior financial leadership roles with Altera Corporation, Veba Electronics and Wyle Electronics. Brad also serves as a director for Advance Auto Parts since 2016.

Brad was born in Canada and holds a B.A. in economics from McMaster University and an honors business administration degree, majoring in finance and accounting, from the University of Windsor.

Charles Chao has served as the Chairman of the Board for Sina Corporation since August 2012 and Chief Executive Officer since May 2006. He served as Sina’s President from September 2005 to February 2013, Chief Financial Officer from February 2001 to May 2006, Co-Chief Operating Officer from July 2004 to September 2005, and Executive Vice President from April 2002 to June 2003. Prior to joining Sina, Mr. Chao served as an audit manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP, an accounting firm. Prior to that, Mr. Chao was a news correspondent at Shanghai Media Group. Mr. Chao is currently the Chairman of Weibo Corporation, a leading social media company, a director of NetDragon Websoft Inc., a company providing technology for online gaming and a director of Leju Holdings Ltd., an online-to-offline (O2O) real estate services provider in China. Mr. Chao holds a Master of Professional Accounting degree from University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. in Journalism from University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Journalism from Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Bonnie Yi Zhang has served as Sina Corporation's Chief Financial Officer since March 2015. Prior to joining Sina, Ms. Zhang has served as Chief Financial Officer of Weibo Corporation, a subsidiary of Sina since March 2014. From May 2011 to February 2014, Ms. Zhang was the Chief Financial Officer of AdChina Ltd., a company operating an integrated internet advertising platform in China. From October 2007 to April 2011, Ms. Zhang was an audit partner of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu based in Shanghai, with a focus on serving Chinese companies listed in the United States and Chinese companies making initial public offerings in the United States. From May 2005 to August 2007, she served as a senior manager in the National Office SEC Services group of Deloitte & Touche, LLP. While she was with that group, Ms. Zhang was primarily responsible for pre-issuance reviews of securities offering documents and periodic reports to be filed with the SEC and was primarily focusing on foreign private issuers. Ms. Zhang graduated summa cum laude in 1997 with a B.A. in Business Administration from McDaniel College in Maryland. She is a certified public accountant in the State of Maryland and is a member of the American Institution of Certified Public Accountants.

Karen C. Francis is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a strong track record of successfully building companies and businesses across multiple industries. Karen’s extensive board and corporate governance experience over the last twenty years has spanned public, family-owned, private equity and venture capital portfolio companies as well as numerous national non-profits, industry association and membership driven organizations. She is a visionary leader with strong emphasis on strategic, marketing, technology, and leadership skills. Karen has deep domain knowledge in the automotive and advertising sectors and has embraced the opportunities that the technology disruption is creating globally. 

Karen holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School where she has been appointed to the HBS Alumni Board and holds a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College where she has served for nine years on the Board of Trustees. 

Michelle Sterling is the former Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Human Resources Officer for Qualcomm Incorporated, the world’s leading wireless communications technology company. In addition to her deep knowledge of executive compensation, CEO and executive leadership succession, Michelle has her hands on the pulse of the dynamic global technology market and human capital implications. Throughout her 25-year tenure with the company, Michelle led Qualcomm’s 33,000 employees through complex business transactions, including acquisitions, joint ventures and divestitures, large-scale integration planning and significant international growth. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Michelle served in various human resources roles at ABB Traction and Manpower.

Michelle currently serves on the Board of Directors, Governance and Compensation and Human Capital Committees for Digital Turbine, a mobile delivery and app advertising platform.

Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Redlands. She also attended the Women on Boards program at Harvard Business School.