Kevin W. Mangum

Kevin W. Mangum is the founder of KW Mangum and Associates, LLC, delivering innovative strategies and solutions in organizational leadership and the aerospace and defense sectors. He is a proven change agent, problem solver, team builder, and teammate. Kevin provides a unique perspective having formed, led, and advised high performing elite teams and organizations for over twenty years in both the public and private sectors. His experience includes command and leadership that spans leading elite small teams, conducting high-stakes, no-fail missions; directing and orchestrating a 50,000 employee US Army command; and shaping winning pursuits for the world’s largest defense contractor.

Kevin is currently a Vice President at Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems, where he serves as a key strategic advisor and subject matter expert on U.S. Army and international programs and opportunities. During his nearly four years with the corporation, he helped develop winning strategies that resulted in increasing sales to the US Army by nearly $700 million per year (a 30% increase). He focuses much of his time and energy in pursuing revolutionary next generation rotorcraft programs and business. Kevin is integral in a major international rotorcraft campaign, disrupting an existing program. This campaign resulted in the host country investing in a new start program with a potential multi-billion dollar total program value.

Kevin culminated his thirty five-year Army career as the Deputy Commander of US Army Training and Doctrine Command, the command charged with designing, acquiring, building, and improving the Army. In this capacity, he directed the day- to-day operation of the command, spread over 1600 locations worldwide, and oversaw recruiting and US Army Cadet Command and its Reserve Officer Training Corps. Known for his collaborative and collegial approach, Kevin helped the Army solve some of its most vexing and complex problems from gender integration of combat arms to reorganizing US Army Aviation. He was also a member of governance boards which oversaw the Army’s $21 billion training budget and managed Senior Executive Service succession and assignments. Kevin also led the Army’s efforts to a standards-based, scientifically verified approach to integrating women in combat arms branches and set conditions to train them in Army schools.

Additionally, Kevin served as the Commanding General of the US Army Aviation Center of Excellence where he was charged with charting the future of Army Aviation, developing leader development programs, and training all Aviation Soldiers. In that capacity, he led the most significant reorganization of Army Aviation in decades, increasing capacity while saving the Army over $12 billion. He also commanded and led conventional and special operations units in peace and war. Some of Kevin’s key accomplishments in the Army include: leading the establishment of the US Army Special Operations Aviation Command and commanding the special operations aviation battalion that conducted the longest air assault raid in US history during the first combat operations in Afghanistan after the attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Known for developing leaders of character, Kevin’s passion is teaching, coaching and mentoring, sharing his experience and expertise. He is particularly interested in helping others develop values-based leadership and critical thinking skills to build high performing teams. Kevin played a key role in developing leader development strategies and programs for the Army, individual commands, and units he led. He is a leadership consultant at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and is regularly asked to lecture on leadership at the small team and strategic levels.

Kevin is also active in non-profit organizations. He is a member of the Army Advisory Board at the Mitre Corporation, and is Chairman of the Board for the Night Stalker Foundation (a 501(c)(3) organization supporting elite aviation Soldiers and their Families). He was also a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women In The Services (DACOWITS) from 2018 until 2021.

Kevin is graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Webster University. He was also a US Army War College Fellow at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he focused his research on a new legal paradigm for terrorism and the treatment of terrorists. Kevin also completed an Executive Development Program at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina and the National Association of Corporate Director’s “How to be a Director” course.

Kevin has been married to his lovely wife, Angel, for over 32 years. They have a beautiful daughter, Anela, who is a student at the Washington College of Law, American University.