Ines Voellinger
Ines Voellinger is a visionary leader in artificial intelligence transformation, bringing more than 17 years of experience driving digital strategy and innovation in highly regulated, safety-critical environments. She currently serves as a Digital Transformation and AI Innovation Strategist at Volkswagen Group of America, where she leads AI strategy and adoption initiatives across engineering in North America. Her work focuses on scalable, compliance-driven implementation, aligning advanced technologies with governance, risk management, and human-centered workflows to enable responsible enterprise-wide transformation. Following the emissions crisis, she played a key role in building product compliance programs and collaborating with federal regulatory bodies, further strengthening her expertise in governance and risk.
In parallel, Ines is the CEO and Founder of IV.ai Solutions, a healthcare AI education and innovation platform she soft-launched in March of last year and now leads full-time. As a recognized healthcare futurist and keynote speaker, she delivers AOA- and ACCME-aligned educational programs to physicians and healthcare organizations across the United States and Europe. Serving as CME Faculty with the Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, she specializes in translating complex innovations including AI, wearables, and genomics into practical clinician-centered applications that enhance decision-making while preserving trust and the human connection in care. She collaborates with leading institutions such as Stanford University and Vanderbilt University, as well as global platforms like Reuters Digital Health, to advance clinician education and cross-sector dialogue.
Based in the Greater Chattanooga area, Ines brings a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective shaped by her international background and personal journey. Originally from Germany, she began her career in the tourism industry across Spain and Europe before relocating to the United States in 2007 and joining Volkswagen in 2009 during the launch of its Chattanooga production plant. Her lived experience as a patient following multiple serious accidents exposed critical gaps in healthcare delivery, inspiring her to pursue executive education in AI in healthcare and digital transformation. Today, as a founding member of the AI TechX Consortium of Tennessee through the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she works at the intersection of automotive and healthcare, leveraging technologies such as vehicle sensor data to help predict medical events and improve access to care. Driven by a commitment to health equity, she is dedicated to democratizing healthcare and advancing a shift from reactive “sick care” to proactive, preventive, and human-centered models, particularly for underserved rural communities.
• Executive Harvard Leadership Program
• Stanford AI in Healthcare and Digital Transformation Program
• Certified SAFe® Agilist
• Digital Transformation Playbook: Leverage Technology to Innovate Your Business
• Digital Intelligence
• Scrum Master Certified (SMC)
• Certificates for Professional Negotiation Skills – Strategies and Tactics, and Psychology within Negotiations
• University of Cooperative Education Breitenbrunn, Germany - MIB
• Selected as one of top 30 talents in Volkswagen North American region for Executive Harvard Leadership Program
• Member of VRAR Association
• Founding Member of AI TechX Consortium of Tennessee
• Faculty member of Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians (MOPS)
• Faculty member of Tennessee Osteopathic Medical Association
• Certified therapy dog handler for Children's Hospital
• Therapy dog visits to dementia and Alzheimer facilities and retirement homes
• Mentoring students in AI and personal competencies
What do you attribute your success to?
Ines attributes her success to adaptability, continuous learning, and the courage to pivot toward purpose-driven work. Her willingness to step outside of a stable corporate career to pursue meaningful impact in healthcare reflects both resilience and a strong internal drive to create change where it’s most needed.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
To build strong networks and advocate for your own value—especially in environments where recognition isn’t always equally distributed. This insight helped her navigate and grow within male-dominated industries.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say just do it don't doubt yourself. I've worked in automotive for 17 years, which is a very male-dominant environment no matter where you go, whether it's purchasing, sales and marketing, finance, or engineering. Females are not recognized properly or equally, no matter what policies are out there, and there's so much potential because from the characteristics of a female, we are the providers, we are the connectors. We have that overarching thinking going on where we connect these dots. It's a shame that this hasn't been used or seen in these environments. But now there are network groups with females, really great bright minds that can come together and create something - everyone pitches in, whether it's just a connection, a network, or a recommendation. That's so powerful. If I can be an inspiration for someone who might doubt themselves to do something, that would be fantastic. It took me one female person that I hired two years ago who started her own business in writing children's books after being laid off, and the determination she has and the encouragement she gave me helped me get to the point where I said, okay, I can do this full-time. As females, we really can do a lot together. If you believe in it and have an idea, go with it. Dwell on it, think about it, exchange, openly talk to people about it, and these things will come together.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge I see is that physicians are so worked up with administrative work that can be automated, and they don't have the time to really bring it back to that interaction between a patient and a physician. When we go to a physician, how many times does a physician sit at the computer and barely has any eye-to-eye contact with the patient? It's maybe 10 minutes at the max that the physician had time, and they never really get the full picture because things are so fragmented. We go to one provider here, one provider there, and they treat us for a certain disease because they're specialists, but they don't see the holistic approach. The opportunity is utilizing emerging technologies and AI to create that overarching picture and prevent certain diseases in the future. There are so many solutions right now with sensors in vehicles that can detect a diabetic emergency or even if you're leading up to a potential stroke. We have a lot of technology out there, but what we don't have is the education and the enablement from a physician perspective. It's so easy to get caught up with all these technologies and people feeling like they are behind implementing them, but there needs to be awareness of what fits into their workflow so they don't get overhyped and invest in new technologies that end up being a bigger burden. If I can free up 45 minutes every day because physicians don't have to do notes at night and can spend time with their family instead, we can work on shortening the shortage of healthcare workers and bring more people back into the healthcare sector.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity, innovation, collaboration, and impact. She is deeply committed to empowering others, fostering meaningful connections, and ensuring that technology serves humanity especially in improving patient care and supporting healthcare providers.
Locations
IV.ai Solutions
Cleveland, TN 37312