Over a decade of technology and startup experience has put Ilya in a central vantage point of value creation. He understands how ventures go from idea to scale and has taken part in this process firsthand.
Currently, Ilya serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Black & Veatch, a global EPC firm focused on delivering critical human infrastructure. In this role, he supports the company’s Growth Accelerator and works with other parts of the business to connect to forming markets around infrastructure. Construction and Engineering are undergoing a rapid period of change. Navigating this change will drive an important evolution in much of the infrastructure that humanity relies on every day.
Ilya uniquely applies first principles and systems thinking to solve complex problems. A strong academic background and diverse professional experiences act as a strong foundation. Ilya has gained exposure in a wide variety of fields (education, energy, marketing & advertising, transportation, technology). He has built his career at the intersection of computing, people, and systems.
Ilya currently serves in an advisory capacity to a number of organizations including entrepreneurial ventures and venture capital.
Previously Ilya has founded, raised funds for, and run a number of entrepreneurial ventures. One venture was the first to utilize IBM’s Watson to power a sports analytics app.
Ilya holds a BS and MS degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Kansas. During his academic career, he helped build a university-wide transportation research institute that grew to $80M of activity. After completing the Global Scholar Fellowship at the Kauffman Foundation and embedding in the Cisco Systems IP group as part of that experience, he left ABD (all but dissertation) as a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering to pursue entrepreneurial ventures.