State of the Industry Keynote Speaker
Nikhil is a former product executive at Uber, where he most recently co-founded the Elevate division — Uber’s initiative to launch urban aerial ridesharing across the world’s most congested cities, as well as their more nascent Uber Copter product in New York City and their drone delivery project for Uber Eats in San Diego. Before starting Elevate, Nikhil helped lead wins across emerging markets against local competitors in China & India, designed & manufactured the company’s first hardware product Uber Beacon, and co-led the redesign of the rider app in 2015. In 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, he helped lead a strategic sale of the Elevate division to Joby Aviation.
Today, he is an active investor/advisor to dozens of startups in the US, India, and globally including Archer Aviation (eVTOL manufacturer), Evolv Technology (AI-powered security), and numerous others in the deep-tech, mobility, aviation, and consumer sectors. He also founded a consumer product studio that is designing & building high-growth consumer mobile applications.
Nikhil was formerly a consultant in McKinsey’s Silicon Valley Office, where he worked with some of the world’s leading companies at the intersection of consumer and technology, focusing on the travel/transportation/leisure and media sectors.
Before McKinsey, Nikhil founded two startups: Bitcast.io (MasterClass for software developers) and Chachii.com (TaskRabbit for India). He also held PM roles at Google and Microsoft, where he worked with cross-functional teams across YouTube, Xbox, and Office, and previous to that, engineering roles at SAIC and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Nikhil has been previously recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 awardee in Consumer Technology, as well as a United States Presidential Scholar.