Rooted in Atlanta, Built for the World: Kevin Kiley’s Path to Airia
When Kevin Kiley talks about leadership, there’s a distinctly diplomatic tone to his words but not the kind practiced behind embassy walls. It’s the kind that comes from rallying a team through chaos, aligning vision across continents, and building something entirely new from the ground up. It’s fitting, then, that before becoming a multi-time startup operator, Kevin once planned to pursue a career in diplomacy.
“I always thought I’d be a diplomat,” Kevin recalls. “I loved the idea of connecting worlds and finding common ground.”
That instinct — to unite, to translate complexity into collaboration — would eventually define his career. The path just took a different shape.
A Detour That Defined His Leadership
Kevin’s first foray into business came through a security IT asset management startup, where he quickly found himself in senior roles while still in his twenties. He learned fast about market timing, boardroom dynamics, and how to make hard calls when survival was on the line. When a potential acquisition could have saved the company from commoditization, board disagreements derailed the deal. The experience, though painful, shaped Kevin’s instincts for spotting market shifts early and making bold strategic bets.
That lesson paid off when he joined AirWatch, an early-stage WiFi company that would go on to become one of Atlanta’s biggest tech success stories. Over five years, Kevin helped build global teams and scale to more than 20,000 customers, learning firsthand how to operationalize growth across cultures and product transitions.
When VMware acquired AirWatch for $1.54 billion in 2014, Kevin joined a new wave of Atlanta founders shaped by global-scale execution and scrappy beginnings. His next chapter, joining OneTrust as an early executive, would amplify that experience even further. There, he helped scale the privacy and trust platform from near zero to $400 million in ARR in four years, serving over 14,000 customers worldwide.
“That period was like startup bootcamp at scale,” Kevin says. “It taught me how to build durable systems, not just growth machines.”
The Pivot to Airia
After a stint at a hypergrowth and heavily funded Silicon Valley startup, Kevin found himself craving something different: a return to purpose, efficiency, and culture.
While out in the Bay Area, he witnessed firsthand how even great companies could lose momentum when bureaucracy outpaced clarity. “Money can dull the urgency that drives innovation,” he says. “I wanted to build a company that stayed hungry, no matter how much capital it had.”
Airia was born from that mindset and from a seemingly unrelated idea. What began as a wellness app designed to unify wearable data and AI coaching soon revealed a much bigger opportunity: the fragmented and inefficient way enterprises were integrating AI tools.
Kevin and his co-founder, John, saw a pattern across industries — organizations drowning in disjointed AI solutions without a unified orchestration layer. Airia’s mission became clear: to consolidate the complexity of AI adoption into one intelligent platform.
Today, Airia helps companies harness the full potential of AI by bringing together security, governance, orchestration, and automation into a single system of efficiency, enabling faster innovation with fewer tools, less friction, and more trust.
Building from Atlanta, for the World
They could have built Airia anywhere. But for Kevin and John, Atlanta wasn’t just home. It was a strategic advantage.
“The not-so-secret secret is you can hire incredible people without fighting the same battles you face in the Valley or Boston,” he says. “And having the world’s busiest airport means we can meet a customer face-to-face almost anywhere the same day.”
He also points to the tight-knit nature of Atlanta’s tech ecosystem, where founders, universities, and investors collaborate more like a community than a competition. “We’re building a new kind of tech culture here. One that’s ambitious but grounded,” he adds.
Leading with Culture, Efficiency, and Purpose
Kevin’s leadership philosophy is rooted in three things: clarity, efficiency, and people. He paints a vivid vision for his teams, ensuring everyone understands not just the what but the why. His greatest satisfaction, he says, comes from seeing people grow into roles they once thought they weren’t ready for or that were out of reach.
At Airia, that mindset translates into a culture that’s deliberately scrappy even with significant capital behind it. “Efficiency is part of our DNA,” Kevin says. “It’s not about doing more with less; it’s about creating more impact per dollar, per hour, per idea.”
Scaling Through Partnership: The Engage Effect
Joining Engage has accelerated Airia’s reach and relevance. Through Engage, Kevin and his team have gained direct access to senior decision-makers across industries, building credibility and partnerships that typically take years to secure.
“Engage shortens the distance between innovation and impact,” Kevin explains. “The introductions we’ve made through the program have already expanded our footprint and validated our approach with enterprise buyers.”
For Kevin, Engage isn’t just a partnership platform but also a reflection of what Atlanta does best — connecting ideas, people, and opportunity to create something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Kevin’s Founder Equation
Kevin’s definition of success has evolved from growth-at-all-costs to building something enduring, balancing innovation with integrity and scale with sustainability. “I’ve learned that building great companies isn’t just about chasing numbers,” he says. “It’s about building people, creating culture, and leaving something that lasts.”
In a way, Kevin did become a diplomat after all. Maybe not between nations, but between people, technologies, and the future they’re building together. And when asked what his personal equation for success looks like, his answer captures that balance perfectly:
“Right market + disciplined execution + a team that believes in the mission.”
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