Founder & Managing Director
EY Consulting Israel
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Call when there's a challenge
The call comes
at the turning point.
When a scale-up must become a different company.
When the next stage has to be designed and funded.
When a market has already refused you twice.
When the path forward depends on a technology no one in the room fully trusts yet.
Whatever shape the call takes, the work is the same: make the decision clear, then lead the company down the right path.
Dror Pockard
DP
Tel Aviv · working globally
The lever keeps changing.
The move does not.
"Dror" means freedom in my native language. The name is accurate. I question everything, and I change course when the answer says to.
For thirty years I have done one thing: take companies to their next stage, and make sure the people arrive with it.
In the nineties the lever was re-engineering. EY asked me to open its consulting practice in Israel. I founded it, ran it, and grew it to a significant scale in Israel. When enterprise software became the lever, I pushed Amdocs into CRM, led the acquisition of Clarify from Nortel, moved to California, and ran the business myself. Instead of meeting Siebel head-on, we rebuilt the operation around the telecom depth Amdocs already had. A loss-making $100 million business became a profitable $300 million business in about three years.
From there I went looking for companies I could shape early. I ran the turnaround at Telrad. I joined two technical founders as the business half of eGlue, backed a full change of direction mid-build, and ran it through to the sale to NICE in 2010. I took Colibri into Industry 4.0. In 2018 I asked Earnix why a company selling across Israel and Europe was ignoring the country that writes half the world's insurance. The board's answer was to hire someone, maybe me. I moved to Boston and opened the market myself.
My last full time role was as Chief Strategy Officer at Earnix: acquisitions, five-year planning, and transformation counsel to some of the largest insurers in the world. Insurance is where the record is freshest, after years of the same work in telecom, metal working, food manufacturing, and more. The story was never about the industry.
Seven startups. Lived in Israel, the UK, and the US. The lever changed every decade: re-engineering, then software, then global scale, now AI. The move never changed. Name the destination, rebuild the company around it, keep the people moving with it.
The seats
Thirty years,
one seat at a time.
Eight chapters
President, ClarifyCRM Division
Amdocs
Chief Executive Officer
Telrad Networks
Chief Executive Officer
eGlue Business Technologies
Chief Executive Officer
Colibri Spindles
Head of North America & Chief Strategy Officer
Earnix
Mentor and Coach
Microsoft Accelerator, Zell Entrepreneurship Program, Daroma Tzafona, The Hybrid
Board member
Lordan Industries, Olista, Branco Weiss Institute, Yuvalim
The calls that come
Four Moments,
One Method.
The industries change and the problems repeat. Calls come from CEOs, directors weighing a decision they cannot take back, and from investors on both sides of the check.
The room
The shift
Zero to ten is one company.
Ten to a hundred is another.
Zero to ten million is one company. Ten to a hundred is another. 100M to 500M is completely different. Scaling beyond that is another company. Most leaders close the gap by hiring more salespeople. What the business usually needs is a different company: different structure, different leadership, a different way of making decisions. I have run that crossing from the inside, most recently with my own management team.
Read the call →The market that will not open
You sell well at home and cannot get started in the US.
You sell well at home and cannot get started in the United States. It is the most common one, and it is almost never a sales problem. What has to change is the positioning, the plan, and the people you put on the ground.
Read the call →Build, buy, or partner
You want to be in a space you are not in yet.
You want to be in a space you are not in yet. Building is slow, buying is expensive, and partnering costs you control. I have taken this decision from every side, and lived with the integration afterwards.
Read the call →The AI question
Should we be afraid of AI?
Should we be afraid of AI? It is the question I have been asked most this year, and my answer has not changed. AI is a serious opportunity. The risk is what we attribute to it. People name their chatbots and hear a mind in the machine. Strip out the mythology, then decide what you want the technology to do for the business and implement it the right way.
Read the call →
The method
Before any of them, one question.
Name the real goal
What do we want to achieve, and why? Everything else is built backwards from the answer.
Talk to everyone
Make it safe for people to say what they actually think, then build the plan backwards from the goal.
Move, and carry the people
Transformations rarely fail on the analysis. They fail because nobody carried the people. That second half is where I spend most of my time.
It is the sequence I have used in every seat, and the one I would use in yours.
He held the balance sheet with real discipline, and never once at the expense of a single person in the company.
Dror turns complexity into something a room can actually act on. That is rarer than it sounds.
He started at the goal, not the crisis, and stayed until the plan was real. A mentor in the truest sense.
In their words
Ways to work together
I am not here to take your role.
That is how I open every engagement. You know your business better than I will. What I bring is the wide angle, the crossings I have already made, and a plan built backwards from the goal.
Engagements
The board seat →
Most boards are now accountable for AI decisions their members have never had to make. I read the technology without being fooled by it, I weigh the people risk as seriously as the number, and I ask the question nobody at the table is asking. I take one or two, and I choose them for the mission. I have walked away from a good board after two meetings when the trust was not there.
Advisory →
Longer engagements with CEOs and leadership teams at a transition, and shorter work for investors: diligence before the money is wired, and support afterwards when a portfolio company is stuck. Two founders at war. A founder who is excellent on the technology and unsure on the business. A company at a crossing it cannot make alone. I start at the goal, not at the crisis.
Mentorship →
I was the lead mentor at the Microsoft Accelerator in Israel and in several other entrepreneurship programs, and I mentor small businesses in Israel's north and south through Daroma Tzafona. What I look for is passion, the willingness to do what the business actually needs, and care for the people doing it. Some of this work is paid. Some is volunteering, and that is deliberate.
Speaking →
Panels, boardroom sessions, and the AI Mythology lecture.
Ask about a talk→Start where you want to end up. I begin at the goal, not the crisis, then build the plan backwards from it.
Start a conversationBy the numbers
- 30years in the operating seat
- 7startups
- 3countries lived in
- 4CEO & division-lead seats
Two ways the wide angle pays off
/
Insurance is where the record is freshest, after years of the same work in other industries.
The story was never about the industry.
$100M→$300M
A loss-making business turned profitable in about three years. Diligence before the check, support after.
Writing
Five subjects I
keep coming back to.
Everything I publish sits under one of them. Drag or scroll to browse.
The hard call
What really happens when a decision cannot be reversed, and how to improve your odds before you walk into it.
Read the thread →A different company at every stage
Zero to ten million, ten to a hundred, and past it: what has to change, not what has to grow.
Read the thread →The people carry the change
Why transformations fail, and the half of the work most leaders skip.
Read the thread →AI, without the mythology
What people attribute to the machine, what it does, and how to adopt it without fear.
Read the thread →Mission that moves the needle
Boards chosen for impact, the founders I mentor, and technology pointed at something that matters.
Read the thread →If you are facing a decision you cannot take back, or a stage your company has not crossed before, tell me where you are and what the goal is. If I am not the right person for it, I will say so, and I usually know who is.
Start with what you want to achieve.
hello@pockard.com
Tel Aviv · Working globally
F
Answers to
key questions A All you need
to know Q
key questions A All you need
to know Q
I have spent thirty years in the operating seat, and today I bring that from the outside: as an independent board member, as an advisor to CEOs and leadership teams at a transition, and as a mentor. I am not here to take your role. You know your business better than I will. I am here to help it happen, and if that requires being involved in the operations, I will be. Until you can take it from here.
One or two, and I choose them for the mission. I read the technology without being fooled by it, I weigh the people risk as seriously as the number, and I ask the question nobody at the table is asking. I have walked away from a good board after two meetings when the trust was not there.
Before anything, one question: what do we want to achieve, and why? Then talk to everyone, and make it safe for them to say what they actually think. Build the plan backwards from the goal. Then move, and take the organization with you.
Rarely on the analysis. They fail because nobody named the real goal, or because nobody carried the people. That second half, carrying the people, is where I spend most of my time.
It is the question I have been asked most this year, and my answer has not changed. AI is a serious opportunity. The risk is what we attribute to it. People name their chatbots and hear a mind in the machine. Strip out the mythology, then decide what you want the technology to do for the business and implement it the right way.
Some of it is paid. Some of it is not, and that is deliberate. What I look for is passion, the willingness to do what the business actually needs, and care for the people doing it.