Case Study · Wayve · Frontier AI · Leading through international expansion
One unified leadership team, leading consistently across every market Wayve expands into.
One unified leadership team, leading consistently across every market Wayve expands into.Scaling through hypergrowth and international expansion, Wayve needed its leaders unified around one way of working. We defined how Wayve leads, in its own voice, and embedded it across the business.
How we did it
Discovery
25
managers and leaders interviewed across the business
Bespoke Framework Creation
4
competencies, 12 behaviours, across five levels of leadership
Custom Diagnostic Tool
1
a Manager Strength Index that scores every leader on the framework
Programme
53
leaders developed across three cohorts
25
managers and leaders interviewed to define the Wayve way
53
leaders developed, Director to team lead
Embedded
the competency framework now built into how Wayve leads, and into its custom MSI
Executive Summary
- Sector
- Frontier AI / Autonomous Driving
- Buyer
- People & Talent leadership
The Brief
Wayve was expanding fast across continents: a landmark raise, a move into six locations across three continents, and a shift from research lab to commercial company. Its managers, some of the most capable scientists and engineers in the field, were suddenly leading teams split across California, the UK, Germany and Japan, in different time zones and cultures. The brief was to name how Wayve leads at its best, in Wayve's own language, and embed it across the business before the growth outran it.
The Outcome
Fifty-three leaders who now share one practical way to lead their teams through change, built from Wayve's own voice and held in a custom Manager Strength Index, as the company expands across continents.
01 / The Trigger
Expanding across continents, faster than a shared idea of how to lead across them.
Wayve was expanding across continents faster than any shared idea of how to lead across them could keep up. A landmark raise, new markets opening across six locations from California to the UK to Germany to Japan, and brilliant technical leaders suddenly running teams split by time zone, country and culture. The way great managers led at Wayve was real, but it lived in people's heads, not on a page. Scale and spread that fast, and the culture that made the company does not travel by osmosis. It thins.
The change Wayve was scaling through
01
Capital
A landmark raise to fund the next phase of growth
02
Geography
Six locations on three continents, from California to the UK to Germany to Japan
03
Stage
Moving from a research lab to a commercial company
04
People
Technical leaders taking on teams split across time zones, countries and cultures
Wayve is reshaping autonomous mobility with embodied AI, building the foundation models that take vehicles from assisted to automated driving. The people who lead there are some of the most capable scientists and engineers in the field: the Head of the Wayve Foundation Model, principal roboticists, the leaders of inference optimisation, onboard software, and fleet operations running in the UK, the US and Germany.
As the company raised, opened new markets and moved from research toward commercialisation, it was hiring and promoting managers at pace, and asking them to lead across distance. A fleet operations leader might be running teams in three countries at once. An engineering manager might be growing teams across geographies and standing up new functions to keep pace. A people leader might be learning that, in Japan, the conversation about career and progression is a different conversation entirely. What Wayve did not yet have was a shared, documented answer to a simple question: what does great management look like here, when here is everywhere at once?
Wayve brought 10X in to answer it. Not to import a generic management model, but to discover what leading well at Wayve already looked like at its best, put it into Wayve's own language, and build the development around it. The first job was not to teach. It was to listen, and the same challenge came back again and again.
A team that is never all awake at once
California
9am to 5pm PT
London
9am to 5pm BST
Germany
9am to 5pm CEST
Japan
9am to 5pm JST
The whole-team window
A single manager's team could now span California, the UK, Germany and Japan. On a normal working day, the window when all four are awake at once is barely there, and leading well across it does not happen by accident.
What the discovery heard
“Global leadership across time zones, with only a few hours of overlap between the UK, the US and Japan, and people feeling it when they cannot move forward.”
Engineering leadership
“Growing teams across geographies, and standing up new functions to keep pace.”
Engineering management
“Cross-cultural management, where leading in Japan and leading in the US are not the same job.”
Customer programmes
“Running fleets across the UK, the US and Germany, with leaders constantly on the move.”
Fleet operations
02 / Defining the Wayve way
We did not bring a management model. We went and found Wayve's.
10X started with 25 Team Voice interviews, one to one, with managers and leaders from across Wayve. Engineering, research, fleet operations, product, commercial and the functions. The question behind every conversation was the same: when management works brilliantly at Wayve, what does it actually look like? The answers were synthesised into four competencies, each defined by three behaviours, with each behaviour mapped across five levels of leadership, so what good looks like is explicit at every level of the business. That framework was then built into a custom Manager Strength Index: a self-assessment situational judgement test, where leaders work through realistic management scenarios and their choices are scored against the competency behaviours, producing a scorecard that shows each leader exactly where they are performing against the Wayve way.
The shape of the framework we built
3 behaviours, across 5 levels of leadership
The framework 10X built with Wayve: 4 competencies, each defined by 3 behaviours and mapped across 5levels of leadership. The competencies themselves are Wayve's own.
“The leadership framework we built feels and sounds exactly like us as a business. The competencies and behaviours have become a shared language, and they are genuinely embedding into how we see what good looks like.”
03 / The Work
A diagnostic built on Wayve's own competencies, then the work, one competency at a time.
With the framework defined, 10X built a Manager Strength Index around it, not a generic model. Every leader was scored against the four competencies and their behaviours, which surfaced exactly where each one stood and drove everything downstream: how the cohort was grouped, and what each workshop needed to do. The programme then ran across three cohorts in an apply-then-troubleshoot rhythm: each Prime workshop took a single Wayve competency and sent leaders away to use it, then an Elevate session brought them back to work the real problems they had hit trying. That loop, with an embedded Performance Partner reachable between sessions, not the workshop alone, is where the change actually happened.
The method, end to end
Discovery
25
managers and leaders interviewed across the business
Bespoke Framework Creation
4
competencies, 12 behaviours, across five levels of leadership
Custom Diagnostic Tool
1
a Manager Strength Index that scores every leader on the framework
Programme
53
leaders developed across three cohorts
How the partnership ran
01
Built on Wayve's competencies
The Manager Strength Index was a self-assessment situational judgement test built from Wayve's own framework, scoring each leader's behaviour against the four competencies rather than a textbook. The scorecards it produced named the real gaps and drove the design of the programme.
02
Cohorted by the diagnostic
The custom MSI shaped how the cohort was grouped and what each session prioritised, so the development met leaders where the data said they actually were.
03
One competency at a time
Each Prime workshop took a single Wayve competency, with an Elevate troubleshooting session in between to apply it to live challenges. The framework was not a poster on the wall; it was worked through, competency by competency.
What we worked through, focus area by focus area
01
Leading change
Leading multi-function change as the default state, in a company that reinvents itself constantly rather than treating change as the exception.
Outcome Leaders who can take a cross-team change from idea to landed, mapping who it touches before they move.
02
Building high-impact teams
Designing teams on purpose, with clear roles and decision rights, so structure keeps pace with a business doubling around them.
Outcome Managers who build teams deliberately instead of letting them form by accident as Wayve hires at pace.
03
Coaching and developing talent
Becoming a performance enabler for the exceptional specialists they lead, not only a manager of tasks and delivery.
Outcome Leaders who grow and keep exceptional scientists and engineers as the company reshapes around them.
04
Influencing across the matrix
Influencing, aligning and collaborating across a fast-moving, matrixed organisation where no team delivers alone.
Outcome Managers who move work forward across functions and geographies without relying on authority.
05
Deciding through ambiguity
Making calls without complete information, the everyday reality of leading at the frontier of a new technology.
Outcome Leaders who decide and move with incomplete information rather than waiting for a certainty that never comes.
06
Growing careers
Holding honest career-growth conversations that keep people while the company, and their own roles, keep changing.
Outcome Managers who can talk openly about progression, so people stay and develop through the change.
The 53 leaders, across Wayve's technical population
AI & Research
Head of Wayve Foundation Model, Principal Roboticist, Head of Inference Optimisation, Applied Scientist, Head of Datasets
Engineering
Engineering Directors and Managers, Director of Onboard Software, VP Vehicle Software, Director of Embedded Systems, Principal Engineer
Fleet Operations
Director of Fleet Operations, Heads of Fleet Ops UK, US and Germany, Head of Field Engineering
Product & Programme
Director of Program Management, Manager Product Architecture, Head of Customer Programs
Commercial & Strategy
Head of Commercial Strategy, Technical Business Development, Director of Marketing, Head of Data Strategy
Functions
Director of Finance, Director of Public Policy, People Operations Lead, Workplace Director, Head of Security
53
leaders, one shared way of leading
AI & Research
Head of Wayve Foundation Model, Principal Roboticist, Head of Inference Optimisation, Applied Scientist, Head of Datasets
Engineering
Engineering Directors and Managers, Director of Onboard Software, VP Vehicle Software, Director of Embedded Systems, Principal Engineer
Fleet Operations
Director of Fleet Operations, Heads of Fleet Ops UK, US and Germany, Head of Field Engineering
Product & Programme
Director of Program Management, Manager Product Architecture, Head of Customer Programs
Commercial & Strategy
Head of Commercial Strategy, Technical Business Development, Director of Marketing, Head of Data Strategy
Functions
Director of Finance, Director of Public Policy, People Operations Lead, Workplace Director, Head of Security
53
leaders, one shared way of leading
04 / What Wayve says
Development that Wayve's engineers and scientists actually rated.
Across engineering, research and fleet operations, here is how Wayve's leaders describe what the programme changed for them.
“As someone who has been through a lot of leadership training where people talk at you, not to you, this is a real step up. The enthusiasm from the team is a game changer, and getting a baseline understanding of where you are as a leader means you can immediately have an impact.”
“I loved that there were no contrived scenarios. Everything came from our own real experience. The external frameworks were introduced at just the right level, so the information actually felt new and we could dig into it further.”
“The workshop offered a practical set of playbooks for change management that felt genuinely useful. It wasn't overly formal, which suited my style, making it easier to absorb and apply what I've learned in everyday management.”
“The workshop was highly engaging, with great energy and clarity throughout. I appreciated the prompts that encouraged reflection on real situations relevant to our current state. Lively sessions that genuinely made us think.”
“The workshop was engaging and kept everyone involved throughout. The introduction to the Seven S framework offered a useful perspective, prompting me to take a closer look at our organisation's design.”
“The positive energy brought to the workshop really helped keep everyone engaged. It made for an enjoyable and interactive experience, allowing us all to participate fully and benefit from the programme.”
The language that now runs across the company
Some of it 10X taught, some the cohort coined. These are the phrases that now travel between a manager in California and a manager in Tokyo, the clearest sign that Wayve leads one way, not ten.
05 / What changed
Managers who can lead their teams through constant change.
The clearest outcome is in how Wayve's managers now lead their teams through change. The programme opened on exactly that, leading multi-function change initiatives, and gave leaders a shared, practical way to do it in a business that reinvents itself constantly.
Underneath it sits the lasting infrastructure. The Wayve way of leading now exists on a page: a documented framework of four competencies in the company's own language, with what good looks like defined at every level. A manager in fleet operations in Germany and a manager in research in London can use the same vocabulary to lead, and new leaders joining or stepping up inherit a defined standard rather than guessing at it.
And underneath that sits the custom Manager Strength Index, the situational judgement self-assessment that scored all 53 leaders and hands each one a scorecard against those competencies. It shows Wayve where management capability sits and where to invest as the company keeps expanding. Three cohorts worked through the full framework, and the competency model is now embedded in how Wayve leads.
What changed in the work
The strongest proof was not in the room. It came when leaders returned to the troubleshooting sessions and reported what they had actually done back in the job:
One leader stopped being the hero
They broke their team's reliance on a single go-to engineer, coaching the team to solve problems together instead of handing over the answer. On a good week, everyone now contributes more equally.
Another moved from blocker to advisor
Rather than overruling a team's approach, they let the team own the call and stepped back in only when asked. It turned a relationship that had been difficult into a trusted one.
A third rolled change in slowly
They introduced a new way of working over months rather than overnight, so it never landed as micromanagement, and the team settled into a far better rhythm.
One led performance by data, not anecdote
They replaced impressions with a clear signal the team could see, opened the conversation with it, and more often than not the performance lifted.
Another invested in person across the distance
They spent real time face to face with a team member who was struggling a continent away, and turned a near-resignation into a move to a new team inside Wayve.
What the partnership has produced
01
A shared language
Four competencies and twelve behaviours that name how good managers lead at Wayve, in plain language the whole company shares
02
A custom diagnostic
A situational judgement Manager Strength Index that scored all 53 leaders and handed each a scorecard against the framework
03
A new way of working
The competencies embedded into how Wayve leads, after three cohorts worked through the full framework
Why it matters at this scale
A definition of leadership that scales faster than the org chart.
A way of leading that lives only in the founders and the earliest managers does not survive expansion across continents. By naming the Wayve way and building the diagnostic and the development around it, Wayve turned an implicit culture into something it can teach, measure and carry into every new market, every time zone and every new hire. The company keeps changing; the definition of how it leads no longer has to be rediscovered each time.
06 / Start here
If your business is expanding across borders faster than your definition of how to lead across them, the culture that got you here will not survive the growth by accident. Wayve chose to make theirs explicit.
Every partnership between 10X and a client is entirely bespoke and unique. Book a no-obligation call with one of our Development Experts to scope how we could support you and your situation.