Kurt Kelty is the VP of Commercialization and Battery Engineering at Sila where he leads the sales and deployment of Sila’s material. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the battery industry, including 11 years at Tesla, where he most recently served as Senior Director of Battery Technology. There he was responsible for leading numerous key initiatives, including setting the company’s battery cell usage strategy, delivering the batteries implemented in the Roadster, Model S/X and Model 3, and leading partnerships and material sourcing efforts at the Gigafactory, among many others. Prior to Tesla, Kurt was Director of Business Development at Panasonic, where he founded the U.S. battery R&D lab.

Kelty holds a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College and an MS from Stanford. He is the author of 16 patents.