Bringing clients a unique blend of consulting, operating, entrepreneurial, and investing experience, Iliya's interest lies in exploiting the collision between new technologies and old business models. 

Iliya offers clients a unique perspective that only comes from having held multiple high-stakes leadership roles in a diverse assortment of industries, roles, and geographies. He regularly speaks at conferences on a variety of strategy and innovation-related topics, has written articles for leading online sites and publications, and is frequently quoted in media.

His expertise comes from having spent 25+ years innovating. He worked in and ran innovation labs, R&D groups, product teams, corporate strategy teams, and new business development departments at some of the most (and least) innovative companies in the world. He has run large and complex P&Ls, built disruptive products and businesses, filed multiple patents, and even put his money where his mouth was by investing in early-stage startups.

 

He scratched his entrepreneurial itch when he co-founded Highnote Foundry, a company which incubated, operated, and invested in new business ventures in partnership with leading corporations. 

Iliya is a “reformed nerd” having graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Information Systems and Decision Science (AI) with a concentration in Human Computer Interaction (UX).

 

His wife and two boys make sure to remind him of his nerdiness on a daily basis. In his spare time he likes to exercise his imagination by pretending he can play golf, fantasizing about still being able to compete in tennis, and impersonating a skier.

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