How I work

Every company reaches a stage where the way it has been run stops working. It happens around ten million dollars in revenue and again around a hundred million. Adding salespeople helps for a while. At each stage the company's structure and leadership have to change. It becomes a different company.

I have led companies through these stages, and I have run a session on exactly this for my own management team. Each time I mentor in a new industry, I find the same pattern. A founder in medical devices and a founder in food production face the same questions when they scale. With the leadership team, I name the stage the company is entering and agree on what changes first.

You sell well at home and have not been able to get started in the United States. This is the most common call I get, from CEOs and from investors. Success there depends on how the company positions itself in the new market and on the people it puts on the ground.

I have run US businesses for two Israeli companies: Clarify for Amdocs in California, and the US market for Earnix from Boston. I listen to the market first, then work out with the CEO where to begin and who should lead.

You want to be in a space you are not in yet. Each route has a real cost. The right one depends on what the company is trying to become, so that question comes first.

I led Amdocs' acquisition of Clarify and then ran the business, so I have seen a deal from the first proposal to the integration. Acquisitions were part of my strategy role at Earnix. When I advise a company on this choice, I test each route against the goal, including what the integration will ask of the people.

The question I hear most this year is whether to be afraid of AI. My answer is no. AI is a serious opportunity, and the risk is in what people read into it.

I gave a conference talk on AI and consciousness and have kept reading and building on it since. I use AI in my own work, including building a five-year strategy plan with it, and I have advised insurers on adopting it. I help a leadership team see what the technology can do for the business, and bring its people along.