Shield AI Welcomes Shivon Zilis to Board of Directors

Press Releases

Sep 26, 2023

Neuralink director brings expertise in productizing AI and autonomy to leading defense tech firm

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Shield AI, the defense technology company building the world’s best AI pilot for aircraft, today announced that Shivon Zilis, Director of Special Projects at Neuralink and Open AI board member, has joined its board of directors.

“When I first met Shield AI’s founders, I immediately knew I wanted to work with them. It was so clear that in order to continue our way of life we’d have to be vigilant about creating AI-based deterrents and I had been looking for a team who cared about this mission to its core and had an incredible moral compass, which I was grateful to find in Shield AI,” Zilis said. “It’s wonderful for things to come full circle after getting to work with them as an investor seven years ago and now formally getting to work with the team as a member of the board.”

Zilis brings 15+ years of successful operational and investment experience in the AI and autonomy fields, advising at several of the world’s most successful AI companies as both an investor and a member of executive teams.

“Shivon has extensive expertise building and leading teams to solve the world’s hardest AI problems. She brings a unique blend of deep technical, investment, and operating expertise to our team,” said Ryan Tseng, CEO and co-founder of Shield AI. “She was one of the earliest investors in Shield AI and has been passionate about our mission to protect service members and civilians with artificially intelligent systems since we first talked about it in 2016.”

Zilis worked at Tesla Autopilot and was a board member at OpenAI before settling into her current role at Neuralink. She was also one of the founding investors and partner of Bloomberg Beta. She is a Founding Fellow at the Creative Destruction Lab (a machine learning incubator at the University of Toronto); on the boards of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute; a charter member of C100 (a nonprofit connecting the leading Canadian minds in technology); and a co-host of an annual machine learning conference at the University of Toronto.

About Shield AI
Founded in 2015, Shield AI is a venture-backed defense technology company whose mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. In pursuit of this mission, Shield AI is building the world’s best AI pilot. Its AI pilot, Hivemind, has flown a fighter jet (F-16), a vertical takeoff and landing drone (V-BAT), and a quadcopter (Nova). The company has offices in San Diego, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and abroad. Shield AI’s products and people are currently in the field actively supporting operations with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. allies. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Media Contact:
Lily Hinz
Media@shield.ai