Kevin Rustagi

Kevin Rustagi is an entrepreneur and early employee/advisor to startups. His education background is as follows: MIT BSc in Mechanical Engineering / Product Design, Stanford MBA, Stanford MSc in Mechanical Engineering / Robotics. He was also a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist. After turning down a job to work on the iPhone, Kevin co-founded Ministry of Supply at the end of college and most recently, was the first business hire at the eVTOL company and Capital Factory portfolio company, LIFT Aircraft. He recently left as Chief Commercial Officer after a 5-year stint selling some of the first aircraft of their kind in the world and achieving a 60+% win rate on government contracts. There, he also co-ran HR, helped hire executives and staff, and worked on the leadership team to take the business from R&D to commercial launch, as well as the first EMS use of the aircraft (supported by an Army AAL contract). Kevin has helped entrepreneurs raise funds as a communications coach (after TA'ing several Stanford MBA communications courses and their public speaking program, LOWKeyNotes), navigate cofounder challenges (currently collaborating with Confidante Coaching), and fundraising (have advised multiple startups on crowdfunding, including 2 other top 10 fashion startups on Kickstarter). Kevin's work has been featured in Forbes, NYTimes, Techcrunch, and on 60 Minutes (Anderson Cooper flew the LIFT HEXA). Kevin also testified before the House Small Business Subcommittee on crowdfunding. As someone who is mixed race (father from India, mother is Caucasian), speaks mandarin, and spent the last 4 years working on DoD projects, Kevin recognizes the importance of speaking multiple languages. This comes up going between business and design/engineering, and it is something he really enjoys. A huge fan of Adam Grant's book, Give and Take, and having taught multiple workshops, I embrace generosity and collaborative learning.