CEO & Founder, MeridianVertex, Sweden
Michael Schön is a senior advisor to deep-tech companies, investors, and industrial leaders, with more than 30 years of international experience across space, aerospace, automotive, AI, and corporate venture capital.
He began his career at Saab Ericsson Space (now Beyond Gravity) before spending 15 years at the European Space Agency (ESA/ESTEC), working across flight software, systems engineering, and programme execution on missions including EarthCARE, CryoSat, Aeolus, GOCE, and ExoMars. He co-developed the ECSS Packet Utilisation Standard-C, the satellite-to-ground communication protocol now adopted across all ESA missions post-2016, with Thales Alenia Space and Airbus, and co-developed the Independent Software Verification and Validation Standard for Mission-Critical Software with NASA and JAXA.
He later joined Volvo Cars, where he initiated the strategic partnership with NVIDIA and led programme execution for the next-generation autonomous-drive core computer, a software-defined platform now powering the EX90, ES90, and upcoming platforms, managing 130+ engineers across three sites.
He subsequently served as Technical Director at Volvo Cars Tech Fund, the company’s corporate venture capital arm, assessing around 700 deep-tech startups annually and supporting approximately six new investments per year across domains including AI, autonomy, advanced sensors, robotics, and electrification. The portfolio includes 25+ companies, among them unicorn and near-unicorn ventures.
Through MeridianVertex, Michael advises founders and scaleups on strategy, commercialisation, investor readiness, partnerships, and technical due diligence. He is a certified board director and currently serves on the board of MetaPilot Academy, backed by Boeing.
He brings a pragmatic, high-trust mentoring style shaped by mission-critical engineering, industrial-scale execution, and investment-side pattern recognition across hundreds of deep-tech ventures. His mentoring is especially relevant for space startups and scaleups navigating commercialisation, dual-use and defence pathways, corporate partnerships, and the transition from advanced technology to scalable business value.
