Mohanna Azarmandi came to Germany as a refugee child. She grew up navigating a country, a language, and a system that was not built with her in mind. That experience never left her. It became the lens through which she leads. Today she is Chief Learning & Culture Officer at CARIAD SE, Volkswagen Group’s software company. She reports directly to the board and shapes the company’s transformation strategy as a member of the Extended Board of Management – responsible for Learning & Development, Culture, and Leadership Development across the entire organization.

Before CARIAD, she built Microsoft Germany’s first CLO function from scratch – a department that became a global reference point within Microsoft worldwide. Her background spans commercial leadership across 32 markets in Central and Eastern Europe, technology consulting, and over a decade of driving transformation from the inside.

As a Woman of Color in boardrooms that still debate whether people like her belong there, she does not perform inclusion. She builds it into structures, strategies, and the way organizations make decisions about their people and their future.