KORY MATTHEWS
Kory Mathews is a recently retired senior global aerospace and defense executive who is respected for leading transformations that deliver sustainable growth, operational excellence, and financial stability through unprecedented change. For nearly 40 years at The Boeing Company, he was a go-to problem solver for a variety of complex programs and businesses at the functional, divisional, and enterprise level. His detailed customer knowledge and ability to forge trusted relationships with industry and government was key to accelerating innovation and profitability.
Kory culminated his career at Boeing co-leading back-to-back crisis responses to COVID-19 and the grounding of all 737-MAX aircraft. Over a three-year span, he program managed Boeing’s response to these crisis directly supporting the Executive Committee and Board and providing the transparency, collaboration, and discipline needed to navigate these historic challenges. Moving into his final role as Vice President of Enterprise Services, he established a new shared-services organization that cut spending by 25% within 18 months and transformed efficiency and customer service amid a corporate liquidity challenge.
Earlier in his career, Kory rose through a series of senior leadership roles that drove innovation and growth within Boeing’s missile and weapons, autonomous systems, and aircraft programs. As Vice President of Missile and Weapons Systems, Kory increased revenue more than 20% by developing new capabilities and securing multibillion-dollar contracts to restart two aging missile programs. He previously stood up a brand-new division focused on transformational autonomous defense capabilities by land, sea, and air. With P&L responsibility for $900 million, he created an M&A strategy centered around acquiring key technology and opened a collaborative research lab devoted to the next generation of autonomous vehicles. Prior to that, Kory led several of Boeing’s classified Phantom Works programs, ultimately leading to $25B in contract wins and transformed the F-18 Program’s strategy to position it for a profitable and extended production. Kory’s business leadership capability is rooted in a strong engineering and program management background, which ultimately led to his role as Chief Engineer of all Boeing military aircraft, leading a team of 14,000 engineers around the world. He initially joined McDonnell Douglas as an engineer prior to its merger with Boeing. He then rotated through multiple assignments as part of an execu1ve development program where he formed a passion for strategy, team building, and leadership.
Kory has been a dedicated not-for-profit board director and community leader for academic, healthcare, and faith-based organizations. For more than a decade, he participated in a Boeing executive focal program with Washington University in St. Louis, providing support on mentoring and scholarships as well as engineering and MBA programming. Most recently, he is serving as CEO of a not-for-profit Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center focused on diverse workforce development, advanced manufacturing R&D, and production line / process prototyping across eight manufacturing sectors. Kory earned an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology.