Seth Spergel is Managing Partner at Merlin Ventures, where he is responsible for identifying cutting-edge companies for Merlin to partner with and invest in. Seth has more than 20 years of experience building, selling, and investing in software and startups. Most recently, Seth was VP for Infrastructure Technologies at In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment firm of the US Intelligence Community. Prior to In-Q-Tel, Seth was the VP of Engineering for ThinkGeek, an online seller and manufacturer of “ge...
Oct 23, 2021•21 min
Rajkumar is the Ronald Trzcinski Professor of Business Administration at the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia. Raj has written about and taught quantitative marketing to MBA and executive education students worldwide. At Darden, he has taught a course on marketing analytics for more than ten years, and a course on marketing technology products for five years. His experience in these courses he translated into the books, Cutting Edge Marketing Analytics, published by Pearson E...
Oct 21, 2021•23 min
I'm a seasoned executive with extensive 2B2B and enterprise experience, passionate about developing long-term solutions for strategic partners and customers. My interest lies in connecting local talent with global companies and removing cross-border barriers to empower growth. I joined BLEND (formerly OneHourTranslation) as a CEO in 2020, with a strong passion to transform the localization industry and remove cross-border barriers for growth-stage companies and brands. Before joining BLEN...
Oct 20, 2021•23 min
Radhika Dutt is the author of Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. An entrepreneur and product leader, she has participated in four acquisitions, two of which were companies that she founded. She has built products in industries including broadcasting, media, advertising technology, government, consumer, robotics, and wine. Dutt advises organizations from high-tech startups to government agencies on building radical products that create a fundamental change instead o...
Oct 20, 2021•23 min
Noam is the co-founder and CEO of Bookaway, a ground and sea transportation platform, basically a Booking.com for travel transportation. The company has recently raised a B round and acquired several of its competitors in order to grow during covid. He started Bookaway after a bad travel experience in the Philippines during his honeymoon, and the company is now one of the leading travel transportation companies in the world.
Oct 19, 2021•21 min
Dikla Czaczkes Akselbrad is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of PolyPid, a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing, and commercializing novel, locally administered therapies to improve surgical outcomes. Before joining PolyPid seven years ago, she served as CFO at both Compugen and Packet Technologies and as Audit Manager at Ernst & Young Israel. She holds an MBA in Finance and a BA in Accounting & Economics, both from ...
Oct 15, 2021•22 min
Ian Cook is recognized for his leadership and insight in the area of workforce analytics and planning. Ian is currently the vice president of people analytics at Visier where he helps customers drive organizational change through linking workforce analysis to business outcomes. He is responsible for the workforce domain expertise within the Visier solutions. Prior to joining Visier, Ian built Canada's leading source of HR Benchmarking data. His knowledge and expertise come from 10+ years of cons...
Oct 14, 2021•21 min
Rani Plaut is CEO and Co-Founder of AIR, the startup reimagining air mobility with eVTOLs for mass personal use. With a rich background in mathematics and physics, automotive and aerospace technologies, Rani’s impressive experience has led him to work with several OEMs and serve on the boards of multiple tech companies and venture funds. Prior to co-founding AIR, he was CEO and Co-Founder of Bmax, a leading provider of advanced metal processing solutions.
Oct 14, 2021•21 min
Dan Dobry was the founder of the Union of Financial Planners in Israel (UFPI), served as the first Chairman and President of UFPI. Dan was the Global Council Representative for Israel for the Global Community (FPSB) from 2012 - 2018 and from January 2019 is a member of the Committee for Standards and Qualifications for the European Union (SQC).
Oct 13, 2021•26 min
As Chief Marketing Officer, Adi is responsible for leading vcita’s strategic thinking and global marketing objectives in supporting micro and small businesses on their journey to success and digital transformation. Coupled with her business acumen, Adi has a host of experience and customer-centric product knowledge, which she constantly brings into new, innovative, company-wide, initiatives that are guided by her passion for enabling the inclusion of the underserved. Driving a growth culture and...
Oct 11, 2021•22 min
Yuval Passov is the regional partner lead, managing Google's relationships with the biggest media agencies across Asia. Prior to his move to Singapore, he was leading the gaming team in Google Israel, working with the leading gaming companies in Europe and the US to develop their marketing strategy, including Playtika, Miniclip, Epic Games, Zynga and many more. He is also the founder of Game On! Asia, the leading podcast in Asia focusing on the mobile gaming ecosystem in Asia. In his free time, ...
Oct 10, 2021•22 min
Avi has broad experience and a proven track record in building innovative startups from the bottom up as well as leading venture capital investments. Before founding Mobilion Ventures, Avi served as the CEO of Capital Nature, an early-stage investment company that focuses on green energy and smart mobility and led the fund’s notable investments of millions of dollars in leading startups. Avi founded the Regional Development Center at the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor and served a...
Oct 10, 2021•26 min
Jennifer Schear is the Founding Partner of Schear Immigration Law Firm, a boutique immigration firm in Tel-Aviv. SI represents Israeli and foreign corporations ranging from Start-Ups through publicly traded companies in securing work authorization for key personnel. SI works closely with local hi-tech accelerators and incubators and the international venture capital community with regard to corporate immigration issues and compliance strategies.
Oct 09, 2021•21 min
Bio: An experienced investor in Agritech and Food tech companies. Until recently was a Venture Partner at Entrée Capital, responsible for AgriTech and FoodTech investments. Invested in 4 Agritech startups. An active Chairwoman of the board at ViAqua and board members in additional startups. Dganit brings over 20 years of senior management experience as Intel Israel CS site manager and VP R&D with Perrigo and Hazera.
Oct 09, 2021•23 min
Avi Golan is ZipRecruiter Israel General Manager and VP Engineering, leading the Israeli engineering site with a data-driven focus on delighting both job seekers and employers and fundamentally improving the hiring experience. Prior to joining ZipRecruiter, Avi is a Mamram alumnus and served in an intelligence unit. Avi has over two decades of experience in the software industry - building and leading R&D organizations.
Oct 08, 2021•25 min
Dr. Moshiel Biton, Addionics's co-founder & CEO is a pioneer entrepreneur and a materials scientist- He is one of the only experts in Future energy research. He did his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Post-doctoral research at Imperial College. He founded Addionics with two of his professors from Imperial College in 2017. In addition to the business side, he has volunteered over the years as a Co-Chair and as a board member at the Israeli Business Club London (IBC)
Oct 08, 2021•22 min
Michael Basch leads Atento Capital, the Venture Arm of the George Kaiser Family Foundation based in Tulsa, OK. Born in California, and living in NYC, London, and Tel Aviv prior to moving to Tulsa, Michael has spent most of his life on the operating side of startups. 4 years ago he moved to Tulsa to work with GKFF to look at ways at deploying capital that not only drives returns but also creates jobs and upward mobility in Tulsa. Outside of work, Michael is married with a beautiful 8-month old ba...
Oct 07, 2021•21 min
Nadav Zafrir is Co-founder of Team8 and Managing Partner of Team8 Platform. Nadav is focused on driving global growth for Team8 and is the architect of Team8’s relationships across the business, academic and technology worlds. Nadav’s experience has positioned him well to help define the opportunities and challenges in today’s technology marketplace.
Oct 07, 2021•36 min
Shy is a Director of Software Engineering at New Relic for Applied Intelligence. Shy started his career at the Israeli Intelligence Corps as a software developer and team leader. He continued working in cybersecurity while completing a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy. He then served four years as a founder and CTO for the twenty-person startup OMGWhen, which created a global search and personalization engine for leisure events. Next, Shy worked at Wix.com as a front-end staff engineer. He comp...
Oct 06, 2021•24 min
Lauren is an entrepreneur by heart, and an avid fan of using the power of remote sensing to achieve the impossible. Lauren co-founded Utilis in 2013 with a novel approach to finding water leaks from space. With a master in geophysics and a bachelor in hydrology and geomorphology, Lauren wrote and executed algorithms being used in Utilis. He possesses seven patents in remote sensing and SAR.
Oct 06, 2021•23 min
Leor is a senior cardiologist and the founder & director of the Rabin Medical Innovation Center. He also serves as the medical director of Vectorious Medical Technologies and as the chairman of Powerful Medical’s scientific board. Before these roles, Leor completed his fellowships in interventional cardiology and the Biodesign innovation program at Stanford University. Leor is a dedicated physician who complements his work with research and innovation, striving to identify global medical nee...
Oct 05, 2021•21 min
Born in East Jerusalem, Dr. Rami Aqeilan is a Full Professor of Immunology and Cancer Research at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. He began his academic career at the University of Jordan where he received a B.Sc. in biology, followed by an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School. In 2008 he joined the faculty of Medicine at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently, he is the Head of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada....
Oct 05, 2021•22 min
Shimon served in the Israeli Air Force for 11 years in several managerial and commanding positions. Multiple near-death weather-related experiences during his service stoked a fascination with the weather, that little thing that affects us all. He’s also passionate about soccer and can recall any statistic whether you ask him to or not. Shimon holds a BA in economics from Ben Gurion University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Oct 05, 2021•23 min
Noa Asher was appointed as CEO of NTT Innovation Laboratory Israel on July first. NTT Israel serves as the focal point for NTT Group companies in Israel and their mission is to bring value to NTT by collaborating with Israeli companies and academia in various fields. NTT is one of the major players in the Japanese communication market and is considered a Fortune 100 company, with over $ 100 billion annual sales, more than 300,000 employees worldwide, operating in 80+ countries. From 2014-2020 No...
Oct 04, 2021•23 min
Yoav is leading Upstream's strategic direction, culture and business execution, with over 17 years of experience in multi-national high-tech companies and start-ups. He brings rich leadership experience in management, marketing and business development of IT and security products spanning over a dozen years of experience in category-leading vendors such as Check Point, Juniper Networks and Broadcom.
Sep 29, 2021•22 min
Yair Benyamini is the Co-founder and CEO of Lendai. Prior to founding Lendai, Yair headed the Cross Border Transactions and the Business Development of one of Israel's leading law firms. In that capacity, he took part in global multi-million dollar transactions in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Yair has more than 15 years of experience leading large-scale operations, including in the IDF and several NGOs. Yair is also the Chairman of SpaceGirlz, a non-profit organization promo...
Sep 28, 2021•22 min
Lotan has been an early-stage technology investor since 2012, with a special interest in IoT, Digital Health, Trust and Safety, Cloud Infrastructure and Enterprise IT. He currently serves on the boards of ActiveFence, 3DSignals, Lumigo, RapidAPI, BeyondMinds and Navina. Lotan is also the founder of the Israeli Industrial IoT Forum and the II4 Conference. Prior to joining Grove Ventures, Lotan was a Strategic Consultant at TASC, an international management consultancy firm, where he focused on th...
Sep 28, 2021•22 min
Chen Admati, Platform General Manager and VP product @ Explorium. Explorium provides an External Data Platform that automatically discovers relevant data signals to improve advanced analytics and accelerate business outcomes. Prior to joining Explorium, Chen was a staff member at Intel’s AI internal unit and the founder of Intel® Pharma Analytics Platform. Chen holds a BSc. in Information System Engineering from Ben-Gurion University. Honorably listed in ’40 under 40’ by Globes magazine in 2018...
Sep 27, 2021•24 min
Robert Cohen is Managing Director of Benson Oak Ventures, an early-stage VC fund based in Israel focused on B2C, Digital SMB and all things related to the passion economy (what it dubs "passionware"). Benson Oak has deployed capital across Europe, the US and Israel for 20 years, and Robert enjoys a deep understanding of the technology market for consumers and small businesses, including operational experience in building global brands and developing and scaling business models, including one of ...
Sep 27, 2021•23 min
Yoni is a serial entrepreneur who started his journey as a software engineer at Microsoft. Having completed his MBA at Harvard, Yoni joined RPX Corp as a founding member of the insurance business. After RPX went public, Yoni left RPX to co-found and merge a fund into Fortress Investment Group where he spent six years as an investor. Yoni moved to Israel and launched Laguna Health, a digital recovery assurance company, with his longtime friend and colleague from Microsoft Yael Peled Adam.
Sep 26, 2021•19 min
