Taking companies to their next stage

I grew up in Tel Aviv. My father was the quiet one in the family. He ran a small business his own father had started, and he never stopped learning. My mother was a senior manager who ran ten things at once. She pushed me to take on any leadership challenge and not to be afraid of asking the tough questions. I first led people in high school, in an Israeli youth movement.

I studied management and economics at Tel Aviv University, then took an MBA in information systems. Work in information systems led me to EY, and to four years with EY Consulting in the UK. Along the way I studied for a PhD at the London School of Economics, which I still intend to finish. In 1995 EY asked me to come home and open its consulting practice in Israel. I founded the practice and ran it until 1998, and by then it had grown to a significant scale.

At Amdocs I argued that we had to go into CRM, and I led the search. It ended at Clarify, a Silicon Valley CRM company owned by Nortel. I led the acquisition and moved to California to run the division as its president. Siebel led the market, so we rebuilt the business around telecom, the industry Amdocs knew best. In about three years, revenue went from $100 million at a heavy loss to $300 million at a profit. When I left California, Tom Siebel offered me a job. I went home to Israel. Amdocs is where I became a real leader and senior manager.

After Amdocs I wanted to lead companies I could shape. In 2005 I became CEO of Telrad Networks and led its turnaround, moving a telecom equipment maker toward services. At eGlue I joined two technical founders as the business half of the company. Partway through we changed direction completely, and I backed the change. We ran eGlue through to its sale to NICE in 2010. At Colibri Spindles I took an industrial company into Industry 4.0. I also chaired three startups. Some of the companies I helped build succeeded and some did not. What I kept from those years: trust your instincts, and hold to your North Star.

I joined Earnix in 2018. It sold across Israel and Europe and had no presence in the United States, the market that writes about half of the world's insurance. I asked why. I spent close to a year traveling the US, talking to carriers and analysts, before I told the board we had to go. The board agreed and said the company would need someone to lead the US business, maybe me. I said I would stand for what I preached, and I moved to Boston to open the market. Today I am back in Israel. My last full time role was as Chief Strategy Officer at Earnix, where I worked on acquisitions and five-year planning, and advised insurers on transformation and AI adoption.

I have served on the boards of Lordan Industries and Olista, and of two education nonprofits, the Branco Weiss Institute and Yuvalim. I was the lead mentor at the Microsoft Accelerator in Israel. I have also mentored founders through the Zell Entrepreneurship Program, The Hybrid, and Daroma Tzafona. Investors call me before they invest, and again when they need help with a company they have backed. I have been a member of YPO, the global network of chief executives, since 2005.