Dr. Wieland Holfelder oversees Google’s Engineering Center in Munich, also home to the Google Safety Engineering Center, he leads the engineering activities around the topic of Digital Sovereignty for Google in Europe. Prior to Google, Dr. Holfelder worked in Silicon Valley for more than 12 years, among others as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Mercedes-Benz Research and Technology North America, Inc. As part of his Ph.D. research, he worked at IBM’s European Networking Center in Heidelberg, Germany, the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA, and the University of Mannheim. He holds a master’s in computer science and economics and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Mannheim, Germany. In 2022 Dr. Holfelder was recognized as a “GI Fellow” by the German Computer Science association.