20MinuteLeaders

Lisandro is one of the pioneers of the venture capital industry in Latin America (J-Ventures LP for Latin American Community, AxiaVentures, AltaVentures – México & USA -, OIKOS AgriFoodTech. He is focused on creating and investing in companies that improve the lives of people around the world, especially in developing areas, and his investments have amounted to multiple exits and IPOs. He hold...

Gil is a veteran high-tech executive with 35 years of management and leadership experience. During his career at Intel (VP), he led several mergers and acquisitions, and managed organizations of up to 2,000 engineers around the world (including developing the solution that kicked off the global WiFi revolution). As VP R&D of Qualcomm, he led the development of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC technol...

Miri is the CEO of Joy Ventures, and previously co-founded Israel Brain Technologies (IBT), a non-profit envisioned by late Israeli President Shimon Peres that accelerated brain-related innovation and established Israel as a global brain technology hub. She began her business career as a corporate economist at Teva Pharmaceuticals and later held financial management positions at Pfizer in New York...

Cindy is the founder and Managing Partner of Illuminate Ventures, a seed stage firm investing exclusively in Enterprise/B2B software startups. Previously, she was founder/CEO of SaaS startup Vivant (now part of Oracle), CEO of Acumen and VP marketing at Scopus (IPO then acquired by Siebel). Cindy has been recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Tech (Fast Company), Most Influential Wome...

David is a Stanford Business School Professor and has held numerous executive positions in communications and strategy. He was an assistant to President George H. W. Bush and member of the White House senior staff, was head of communications at Bank of America, head of brand management at Visa and most recently Stanford’s senior public affairs official.

Julie gew up in a town with a population of 262, and came to Stanford for her undergraduate degree. Upon graduating she joined Steve Jobs at NeXT in 1989 and continued with Apple on the MacOS X team. She later fell in love with teaching and became a full-time Stanford lecturer, providing inspiration to thousands of students. Julie also served on the Computer Science Advancement Placement developme...

Gil is the Founding Partner of UpWest, the only Seed fund that's purposefully designed to help Israeli startups break into the US market. UpWest was the first investor in "unicorn" SentinelOne and its portfolio companies have raised well over $1B in follow-on funding from top US VCs. Previously, Gil was part of the Corporate Development group at Yahoo! and served as a consultant adv...

Taly is VP of Global Business Development & Alliances at Ayehu Software, a high growth startup transforming Enterprise IT Process Automation through leveraging AI and ML. Previously, she was VP of Business Development at Uptima and held leadership positions at IVN, CaesarStone, Unilever, and Super-Pharm. Taly is an LP at J-Ventures, an executive member at HighPowerWomen and a three-time windsu...

Tomer Cohen is a social entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of Tech2Peace, the winner of the presidential Israeli Hope award. Tech2Peace brings together young Arabs and Jews from Israel and the Palestinian territories for intensive seminars that focus on peacemaking, entrepreneurship, and technological training, while their partners include Google, MIT (MISTI), Microsoft, etc.

Shuli Gilutz, Ph. D. specializes in UX research, assessment, and design of interactive products for children. She works in industry and academia, teaching, advising, and conducting research, as well as a strategic consultant for the development and design of children's digital experiences. Dr. Gilutz is a global speaker about kids and digital media, age-appropriate UX, usability, play, and le...

Assaf is the CEO and co-founder of insurtech startup Hippo, a company that is reimagining home insurance through the lens of homeowners - more comprehensive coverage at up to 25% less than competitors. Previously he founded Sabi (acquired), was a consultant with McKinsey & Company and invested with Intel Capital. Assaf holds an MBA from University of Chicago and a BA in finance and LLB in law...

Isaac “Yitz” Applbaum is a co-founder of MizMaa Ventures, a $200M fund which invests in Israeli startup companies. He is an advisor to EIGHT VC Partners and Owl Ventures, and is on the advisory board of Vintage Investment Partners. Previously Yitz was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Concorde Solutions Inc., which he sold to Bank of America where he held an SVP position. Applbaum was a P...

Irina is a director, adviser and often majority stake investor in the fund's portfolio companies. Fluent in 6 languages, Irina is working with ventures in Switzerland, Israel, US and China. Irina's core expertise is in development and promotion of new technologies in digital media and interactive entertainment. She is an active member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and th...

Nir began his hi-tech career in the IDF and since then has spent almost 30 years in the industry in leadership positions. After completing his MBA at Wharton (BSc CS in Technion), he was one of the founding members of the Google R&D center in Tel Aviv and worked in GM leadership roles within the company (search advertising in EMEA, GM of Bebapay). Currently Nir is the co-founder and CEO of All...

Aaron Tartakovsky is co-founder and CEO of Epic CleanTec, a sustainability startup redefining how cities manage their water. He previously served as Director of Business Development and Marketing for CB Engineers, overseeing its R&D division. Prior to that he worked in federal politics and has remained active in affecting public policy on the local, state, and national levels. In 2017 he was r...

Kobi Mahat is one of the most well known and respect Israeli TV personas. He appeared in over 10,000 hours of live TV at the "children's channel" and has since acted in dozens of films and TV shows. Most recently Kobi is an accomplished film producer, having written and directed some of Israel's most well-known films. He holds a B.A in Psychology and a Masters in Organizational...

Michal is a Director of Engineering at Google. She currently leads teams working on Natural Language Understanding, and previously worked on the Google Play team focusing on consumer features, Play Games APIs for developers, Google’s Networking infrastructure and YouTube. Michal co-initiated Mind The Gap, a program aimed at encouraging high school girls to select computer science and math as their...

Yael is the co-founder and CMO of TULU, a startup that aims to reshape the way people use and consume household products in buildings, neighborhoods, and offices. It is a smart rental room (accessible by an app), that leverages data analysis and smart maintenance. The company has 20 locations across Tel Aviv, New York, and New Jersey. Previously Yael was an environmental activist and promoted vent...

Steven is an internationally recognized Crisis/Turnaround CEO/Restructuring Professional, Private Investment Banker and Angel Investor who has been involved in maximizing enterprise value, stakeholder and shareholder value in a broad variety of industries. With 51 years experience of senior management and having been involved in deals amounting to $2.3B, he helped over 105 companies maximize their...

Mor is the Managing Director of 8200 For Startups by EISP, one of the leading startups accelerator in Israel. She founded the 8200 Alumni Association first female entrepreneurship program and the first startup accelerator for reserve duty soldiers. She is a tech and strategy enthusiastic, previously working as a software engineer at VMware and as a strategy consultant at Strategy& (previously...

Dr. Gourgouris is an International Keynote speaker and a #1 Best-selling author of “7 Paths to Lasting Happiness”. After becoming a National Swim Champion of Athens (Greece), he received his BA, MD and PhD in Psychology. He founded the Happiness Center, an organization of world leading experts in the field of Positive Psychology, and has helped thousands of individuals and companies achieve happin...

David is the CEO of ScholarshipOwl, where he is fighting student debt by redefining the way American students pay for their education. He and his team have recently launched the Future Minds Fund, that allows direct financial support for students through crowdfunded scholarships. Previously, David was a part of Google and Waze, and he is an expert on distributed teams, and remote-by default compan...

Nicole is an early stage investor with Ibex Investors where she focuses on Israeli tech startups. She serves as a mentor in several accelerators and is an active member of the startup ecosystem in Israel. In her spare time she enjoys connecting job seekers with jobs, leading the Brandeis Alumni Club of Israel, reading, and playing tennis. She lives in Raanana with her husband and their 3 children.

Keren is Co-Founder and Managing Director of 8200 Woman2Woman. She works as a Finance Manager at a cybersecurity company founded by 8200 alumni. Previously Herscovici worked as the Israeli Accounting Manager at Check Point Software Technologies and as a valuation and strategy consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, leading projects for some of the largest companies in Israel. Herscovici also served...

Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Lumen, a company developing consumer nutrition management platform based on a small device that measures metabolism in a single breath and provides personalized food, lifestyle, and health recommendations. Lumen sold 10,000 devices on Indiegogo during the pre-campaign. Previously, Daniel co-founded Wibiya, acquired by Conduit, and later held VP roles at Conduit.