Rustom Desai

Biography

Rustom Desai brings to the table 25 years of demonstrated success as a technology executive. As an executive at Corning Incorporated, he held leadership positions across tech-heavy industries including Semiconductors, Consumer Electronics, and Telecommunications. He has repeatedly delivered dramatic growth through building strong and diverse global teams, and has deep experience in General Management, Product Management, M&A & Global/Emerging Markets. As a global citizen, he has lived and worked in the US, China, Taiwan and India.

Rustom has extensive governance expertise, having served on Public, JV and Family boards. He is Independent Director and Chair, Nomination & Remuneration Committee, of a publicly traded, woman run, family-controlled company. He is recognized as a relentless proponent of profitable global growth. He has been on several JV boards delivering outcomes aligned with Corning’s objectives. He is on several advisory boards including that of Logix Guru (IT services company in PA) and the Emerging Markets Institute & Praxis Center for Venture Development at Cornell. He chairs the board of his own Family Office companies, where he led the generational transfer and succession plan implementation for his family.

Rustom is visiting faculty at Cornell’s Johnson College of Business, where he teaches a highly popular (and frequent Dean’s List) course called Strategic Alliances (NBA 6530). Applicable to students looking to pursue careers in Finance, M&A, Consulting or General Management, this course arms its students with real-world weapons to envision, negotiate, govern, manage, and exit alliances. Structured as a highly collaborative learning experience, students in class turn art into science as they learn real-world strategies to maximize the effectiveness of Alliances as a valuable tool to deliver enterprise goals. During the course, students are exposed to many aspects of building/managing alliances such as Partner Selection, Contract Negotiation, Governance and Exit. And they deal with alliance-related issues in a variety of industries-including Telecommunications, Consumer Electronics, Social Media, Blockchain/Crypto and Automobile.

More recently, Rustom has turned his attention to the impact of AI on education: he received an Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals credential in 2024. He continues to integrate AI into his course materials, and into his thought process regarding board governance.

Recent Courses

• NBA 4720/NBA 6720 - Family Enterprise Management and Governance
• NBA 6530 - Strategic Alliances

Academic Degrees

• MBA Cornell University, 1995
• BE College of Engineering, Delhi College of Engineering, 1993