JOURNEY 2018 conference

Ronald D. Fisher is the Vice Chair of SoftBank Group. Mr. Fisher is also Chairman of Brightstar, Vice Chairman of Sprint Corporation and a Director of ARM. Mr. Fisher has over 30 years of experience of working with high growth and turnaround technology companies.

Mr. Fisher joined SoftBank in 1995, overseeing its U.S. operations and other activities outside of Asia, and was the founder of SoftBank Capital.

Prior to joining SoftBank, Mr. Fisher was the CEO of Phoenix Technologies Ltd, the leading developer and marketer of system software products for personal computers, from 1990 to 1995. Mr. Fisher joined Phoenix from Interactive Systems Corporation, a UNIX software company that was purchased by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1988. At Interactive Systems he served for five years as President, initially as COO and then CEO.

Mr. Fisher’s experience prior to Interactive Systems includes senior executive positions at Visicorp, TRW, and ICL (USA).

Mr. Fisher earned an MBA from Columbia University, New York, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. He previously served on the board of directors of E*Trade Financial Corp. and GSI Commerce.

Sophie is a futurist whose research entails meeting weirdos and troublemakers in off-the-beaten-track labs, makerspaces, garages around the globe - Shenzhen, Seoul, Detroit, Mumbai. 

As part of her research, she consults for exec teams and boards of large companies on understanding the explosive new technologies defining the new economy. 

Sophie is also CEO of a data and AI company, 1715 Labs,  that she's currently spinning out of the Astrophysics department at Oxford University with her academic co-founder. This follows a career building businesses for WIRED magazine, for Singularity University at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, and prior to California, the interdisciplinary Oxford Martin School at Oxford University, where Sophie raised more than $120m of research investment. 

Jeremy Levine is a partner in Bessemer Venture Partners’ New York office. He joined the firm in 2001 and focuses primarily on software and Internet companies.

He has led early stage investments in consumer Internet companies including LinkedIn, Fandom,Pinterest and Yelp; e-commerce businesses including Diapers.com, KupiVIP and Shopify; and SaaS companies including MindBody, Parallels and XTime.  Four of his portfolio companies have gone public in the last few years, and he has also served on the boards of several Bessemer-backed companies before they were acquired by larger corporations such as Amazon, AOL, Cox, Sony and Naspers.

Jeremy graduated from Duke University with a B.S. in computer science and economics. He tweets from @jeremyL.

Shane Wall is the Chief Technology Officer for HP and the Global Head of HP Labs. In this role, Shane drives the company’s technology vision and strategy, new business incubation and the overall technical and innovation community.

Shane has been at HP for over 10 years, spanning two waves a decade apart. He has held engineering & management roles leading peripheral development, ASIC development, embedded systems, product and platforms, before moving to Intel.

At Intel, Shane spent over 10 years as an executive in the areas of corporate technology, channel platform solutions and mobile communications. He was also directly responsible for ventures and investments during his time with Intel Capital.

Shane holds a passion for the start-up community and is an active angel investor, serving on several startup and technology boards. Shane was the co-founder of venture-backed PrintPaks, a pioneer in multimedia imaging.

He is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and has a B.S., Computer Engineering from Oregon State University. He holds multiple patents in the image and compute area.

Shane is based in Vancouver, Washington.

Yitz is a Founding General Partner of MizMaa Ventures. He is on the Board of Directors of Anagog, Paykey andEpistema. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Shalem College, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation the Asia Society and the Hirshhorn Museum.

Previously, Applbaum was a Partner and Managing Director for Israel at Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm with over three billion dollars under management.

Serial Entrepreneur and Professional CEO in TMT (Technology, Media and Telecom) Sectors

Mr. Alon Aginsky Founded and led three technology companies in TMT sectors in the past 25 years. Mr. Aginsky led a USA based technology company focused in the enterprise sector to a successful IPO in NASDAQ, he founded and led a Telecom Carrier focused technology company to a successful sale and in his recent role he founded and assumed the lead role at cVidya Networks, a global Telecom Analytics company with over 300 employees and 15 offices to a successful acquisition by Amdocs in early 2016. In his last role Mr. Aginsky served as the Chairman of a leading software company in the Autonomous Driving space.

Currently, Mr. Aginsky is the CEO & President of BlockchainIL, a leading blockchain strategy and technology group specializing in ICO services, capital solutions, and token mechanics for the most innovative companies and tokenization projects worldwide with a focus on Israeli tech.

Mr. Aginsky has over 25 years of management and marketing experience in TMT, software development, big data analytics, Security , Automotive and Blockchain. He led companies from inception up to successful exits in his career.

In addition, Mr. Aginsky is a born entrepreneur who also helps young startups grow and prosper. He is an angel investor in startups, acts as active chairman in several companies, technology and business advisor to VCs, mentor to several leading accelerators (including Microsoft) and serves as a board member of IATI (Israeli Advanced Technology Industries).

Jennifer Archie is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the global law firm of Latham & Watkins. She has gained broad experience over her nearly 30-year career at the firm advising clients from emerging companies to global enterprises across all market sectors in matters involving computer fraud and cybercrime, privacy/data security compliance and program management, advertising and marketing practices, information governance, consumer fraud, employment and trade secrets.

Ronen Barel has been acting as the Chairman of EY Israel since 2007 and is a member of the American Executive Board of Ernst & Young. Since becoming a Partner in the firm in 1991, Ronen has been focusing on large public corporations in Israel and abroad. Between 2000 and 2007, Ronen served as the Managing Partner in the firm and prior to that, as partner for nine years.

Ronen holds a BA in Economics and Accounting from the Hebrew University.

Yuval is an experienced entrepreneur, M&A executive and investor, and former CEO of startups including ooVoo, Xacct and Amdocs Cloud Services.

As Head of Corporate Development and Strategy for Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX), he led ten global acquisitions totaling more than two billion dollars of investments.

Prior to co-founding State of Mind Ventures, Yuval was a Partner with Sequoia Capital in Israel, and an independent angel investor.

Yuval is vegan and enjoys long distance trail running at dawn.

Alona Bar On is serving as Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Globes and one of the shareholders of the "Monitin" Group.

Alona is also a co-founding partner and CEO of the Bait Ve-Gag residential urban renewal investment and development fund, currently leading dozens of projects in more than 60 buildings and managing approximately a quarter of a billion ILS of investors' money (mostly institutional).

In the past: Partner in prof. Yitzhak Swary financial consulting firm (today: Cognum), specializing in M&A activity in many business and government sectors; Board Member in Melisron. CPA; BA in Economics and Accounting from TAU; MBA from INSEAD; graduate of Maoz Public Leadership program.

CEO and Co-Founder of Gong io Amit brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in hyper-growth enterprise software startups. Before co-founding and leading the team at Gong.io, Amit was CEO of SiSense, and also held the role of CMO for Panaya.

Paul is responsible for driving EY’s initiatives and investments in blockchain worldwide. With blockchain services teams in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Paul’s team works with service lines to build a portfolio of services across tax, audit, and business transformation. He has extensive experience in the areas of IoT, supply chain and operations and business strategy, developed over 20 years at multiple start-ups, McKinsey, and at IBM.

Noam is a Senior Partner with Ernst & Young Israel. Noam focuses on High Tech and SEC clients. EY is the largest accounting and financial services firm in Israel, serving most of the technology companies. Noam advises entrepreneurs, startups, public companies, multinationals, private investors, venture capital and private equity firms on business, accounting, international tax, M&A transactions, IPOs and other offerings on US or European capital markets, including on matters such as deal structure, commercial terms, regulatory requirements, and due diligences. Over the years Noam has provided services to many of the leading companies.

Noam co-founded the Israeli Business Advisory Group at Ernst & Young offices in the Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, where he spent few years. The group specializes in providing services to Israeli companies that operate with or in the West Coast in general and in the Silicon Valley in particular. In addition, Noam further co-founded and leads EY Russia's technology hub, a joint venture between Ernst & Young Israel and Russia that focuses on serving Russia's technology industry. Noam has an extensive network of professionals who specialize in a broad range of issues.

Noam lead Financial Accounting Advisory Services in Israel. Noam holds BA in Accounting and Economics (Cum Laude) and Master in Business Administration (MBA), both from the Tel-Aviv University, Israel.

Daniel Cohen joined Viola Ventures in 2013 as a General Partner, His investment interests include digital media and consumer internet. He currently serves on the board of Tapingo, LuckyFish, Lightricks, PlayBuzz, Deep, Origami Logic and Puls (foermerly Cellsavers).

He is passionate about anything related to consumer investments, with a specific focus on consumer internet and all related to the conversion of technology and entertainment.

Prior to joining Viola Ventures, Daniel served as a General Partner in Gemini Israel Ventures where he led investments and served as a board member in Adap.tv (acquired by AOL in 2013 for $450M), Outbrain, SupportSpace, Watchdox (acquired by Watchdox), Eyeview and Minute Media. Daniel also managed Gemini’s Silicon Valley office in the years 2006-2009.

He’s is a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program and holds a B.A. in Computer Science and Psychology from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Elliot is an Associate at Stripes Group, a NY based Growth firm where he focuses across software & internet investments. Outside of Stripes, Elliot currently serves at the Chairman of Birthright Excel, a 500 member young professional leadership organization empowering a new generation of rising Jewish business leaders.

Sivan is a Partner at Qumra Capital, Israel's leading late stage fund focused on growth investments. Sivan’s career spans venture capital investing as well as operational sales and marketing experience gained at startups and global high-tech companies.

She was a principal in Evergreen Venture Partners for 8 years, where she focused on Communications, Software and Internet investments. Before that she led acquisition of FTSE 500 key accounts in O2 Telefonica UK as BD Manager.

Previously, Sivan was Sales & Marketing Manager at Starhome, a Comverse affiliate, where she was responsible for building the sales & marketing infrastructure in Europe.

Justin Delaney joined TAL in October 2015 as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for operations and commercial management. Justin has extensive experience in operations, commercial management, strategy and distribution in the life insurance, stockbroking, superannuation and wealth management sectors.

Justin has over 20 years experience in financial services having joined TAL from Macquarie Group, where he was an Executive Director responsible for the Group’s Wealth Management products and services.

Prior to Macquarie, Justin held senior roles with Commonwealth Securities, Orion Fund Services and BT Funds Management. Justin was responsible for the development and launch of the Macquarie Life Insurance business in 2007, and has a demonstrated track record of growing businesses and driving change.

Michael Eisenberg is an Equal Partner at Aleph, an early stage venture capital fund with  over $330MM under management. Aleph serves Israeli entrepreneurs who want to build high growth, scalable, global businesses. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in 12 companies including WeWork, Geoquant, Lemonade, Windward, Honeybook, COLU and Nexar.

Prior to Aleph, Michael was a general partner at Benchmark Capital which he joined in July 2005 and continues as the partner responsible for Benchmark’s Israeli portfolio. Michael has focused on Internet and software-enabled-services investments since 1995 and has invested in and sat on the board of Israel’s leading companies and start ups, such as Shopping.com (Nasdaq SHOP, acquired by EBAY), Conduit, SeekingAlpha, Gigya, WeWork, Wix (Nasdaq WIX), Answers.com (Nasdaq ANSW), Tradeum (acquired: VERT), and Picturevison (acquired: EK).

Michael writes a blog called “Six Kids and a Full Time Job” on Medium on topics ranging from politics to technology, Judaism and macro-economics, He was a contributor to Themarker.com (Hebrew) and is the author of the Hummus Manifesto, the seminal piece on Israel’s innovation scene. In 2016, Michael published two books: “The Vanishing Jew” (Hebrew Version (״ככה יעשה ליהודי”), English Version by Sela Meir Publishing, ) on Jewish Identity and Megillat Esther; and “Ben Barukh”, a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Brakhot.

Michael also serves on the Board of the Shomer Hachadash and Yeshivat Har Etzion and lectures frequently on the topics of Venture Capital, Israel and Entrepreneurship. Michael lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his wife and eight children.

Adam Fisher is a partner at Bessemer and manages the Herzliya, Israel office, which he established in 2007. He focuses on investments in Israel and Europe across multiple technology sectors, from pre-revenue, early stagestartups to expansion stage, growth companies.

Adam is widely regarded as one of the top investors in Israel, and Forbes recently ranked Adam #8 on the Midas List Europe. Adam’s current portfolio spans several areas of investment, including consumer Internet (Fiverr, MyHeritage), SaaS (Cloudinary, Dynamic Yield, HiBob, Prospera, SiSense, Wandera, YotPo), cloud infrastructure (CTERA, Stratoscale, ScyllaDB), and enabling technology (Oryx, Vayyar).

During his venture career, Adam’s investments have resulted in more than 14 IPO and M&A exits, 10 of which were pre-product at the time of his initial investment. His exits include Altair Semiconductor (acquired by Sony Semiconductor), Allot Communications (ALLT), Axis Network Technology (acquired by Ace Technology), BillGuard (acquired by Prosper Marketplace), Cogent Communications (COGT), Dune Networks (acquired by Broadcom), Intucell Systems (acquired by Cisco), Leaba Semiconductor, (acquired by Cisco), Native Networks (acquired by Alcatel), Ravello(acquired by Oracle), Soluto (acquired by Asurion), Storwize (acquired by IBM), Traffix (acquired by F5) and Wix.com (WIX).

Prior to Bessemer, Adam spent nine years at Jerusalem Venture Partners, where he was partner in their New York, Jerusalem and Beijing offices.

Adam received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, where he majored in economics and international business diplomacy. Born in South Africa, Adam has lived in the US, China andIsrael. He blogs about venture capital and Israeli high tech at Savants in the Levant.

David is a Managing Director and joined Vector in 2006. He manages the Private Equity Investment Team and has been actively involved in Vector's investments in SafeNet, RAE Systems, Aladdin Knowledge Systems (merged with SafeNet), Teletrac (formerly Trafficmaster), Technicolor S.A., Open Solutions, ChyronHego, Allegro Development, Saba Software, and Halogen Software (acquired by Saba).

David currently serves on the Board of Directors of Allegro Development, ChyronHego, and Saba Software. David was previously a Director of Technicolor S.A., SafeNet (acquired by Gemalto), RAE Systems (acquired by Honeywell), Teletrac (acquired by Danaher), and Aladdin Knowledge Systems (merged with SafeNet). He sits on the investment committee of both the private equity funds and the Vector Credit Opportunity Fund.

He was named the Technology Investor of the Year – North America by ACQ Finance Magazine. Prior to joining Vector, David worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. for 10 years and was a Managing Director in the Mergers and Acquisitions area, focused primarily on technology and media transactions. David worked closely with senior management teams to analyze and execute a variety of strategic alternatives, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and leveraged buyouts. In his time at Goldman, David led or participated in over 30 transactions worth an aggregate value of $120 billion, including transactions involving Microsoft, eBay, Adobe, IBM, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Prior to Goldman Sachs, David worked at JPMorgan where he was responsible for raising debt financing for the firm’s corporate clients.

David has an MBA with Distinction from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. with honors in Economics from Duke University.

Dan Geva is a partner in the Corporate and Securities Group. He advises Israeli and international corporations in planning and structuring complex transactions involving acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings and associated corporate finance matters. In addition, Dan has invaluable experience advising emerging growth companies in all stages of their development.

Dan represents Israeli and international issuers and investment banks in a variety of financing matters, and has worked on numerous initial public offerings and other offerings registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as offerings exempt from SEC registration pursuant to Rule 144A and Regulation S.

Prior to joining the firm, Dan was a corporate associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York. Dan has also served as Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Development M&A for Amdocs (NYSE: DOX) and as Chairman of Blades Technologies Limited.

Aaron Gershenberg is a Founder and Managing Partner of Silicon Valley Bank Capital’s fund of funds and direct funds, SVB Capital. Aaron joined SVB in 1999 and has been part of the venture capital industry since 1996. Under his leadership, the group has over $4.5 billion under management across Fund of Funds, Direct Fundsand separate accounts.

Aaron’s expertise is evaluating venture capital funds globally while building a unique value proposition for institutional investors seeking to access the innovation economy. He has published numerous articles on the future of venture capital and is frequently invited to speak and moderate panels at conferences in the US and Overseas.

Prior to joining SVB, Aaron opened FirstCorp’s Northern California office, a venture leasing group focused onearly stage companies. In this capacity, Aaron was responsible for providing venture financing to more than 50 startup technology companies.

Previously, Aaron was part of the investment banking group for Union Bank of California and the real estate consulting practice of Deloitte & Touche.

Aaron earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics and African Studies from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in finance from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Gianfranco Giannella is the Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of our Group and has been with Octo since 2013.

Mr. Giannella started his career in 1990 in Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) after obtaining his degree in Business Administration. He left Andersen Consulting as senior manager in 1999 and moved to DMR Consiel where he worked as Executive Senior Advisor. He then joined IBM in 2001, first as Principal in the Strategy practice of IBM Consulting and then as Executive Partner for Telecommunication industry.

He is a master deal maker educated at Insead, Fontainbleau.

Tom Glocer is the founder and managing partner of Angelic Ventures, LP, a family office focusing on early stage investments in financial technology, cyber defense and media.  Tom is Executive Chair and Co-Founder of BlueVoyant LLC and Capitolis Inc, cyber defense and fintech start-ups, respectively.

From 1993 through 2011 Mr. Glocer worked at Reuters Group PLC and its successor company, Thomson Reuters Corp.  He served as CEO during his last 11 years at the news and professional information provider.  Prior to Reuters Tom was an M&A lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York, Paris and Tokyo.

He is a director of Merck & Co. (Chair of Compensation Committee), Morgan Stanley (Lead Director), Publicis Groupe, K2 Intelligence and the Atlantic Council; a trustee of the Cleveland Clinic and various alumni boards at Columbia and Yale Universities.

Tom received a BA from Columbia College in 1981 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1984.

Seasoned entrepreneur with a technological and financial background. Former Captain in the Israeli Intelligence Corps, co-founded and managed an algorithmic trading company, was a former head of IT investments for a private equity fund, exited an Ad-tech company which he, later on, took public in the UK. Holds a B.A. in Business Management.

Vanessa Grellet is a Global Executive with over 17 years of expertise in the Financial Services and Tech industry.

At ConsenSys she focuses on Enterprise and Strategic initiatives including the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), the Accounting Blockchain coalition (ABC) and leads the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC).

Prior to Joining ConsenSys she was the CEO of IIH a Wealth Management firm, a key member of PwC’s global wealth management team and served as a corporate strategy executive for the NYSE managing a portfolio of strategic projects, partnerships and M&A focusing on Derivatives, Cash markets, Clearing, Listing, Market data and Regulatory reform.

She is a former securities lawyer and worked for various regulators. She chairs the Nexus Working Group on Impact Investing, dedicated to educating, empowering, and connecting Next-Gen impact investors, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs.

Vanessa is an Advisory Board member of Cornerstone Capital, an ESG asset manager, sits on the Advisory Board of The Resolution Project dedicated to activating young leaders through social entrepreneurship and is a Partner at Acumen fund focused on impact investing. She is a Milken Institute Young Leader and a Young Leader Board member of the Off the Record lectures series (OTR) affiliated with the Foreign Policy Association.

Mrs. Grellet graduated Cum Laude from Law School (Paris II Assas) and Business School (HEC).

Or is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Skyline.

Or taught himself how to program at the age of 13, when he used to hack on mIRC. Prior to Skyline, Or was Co-Founder and CTO at Sequoia Capital-backed StreamRail, which was acquired by ironSource on June 2016.

Prior to StreamRail, Or was a researcher at security company AVG (NYSE: AVG), where he led a team of researchers at the company's global innovation center in Amsterdam. Or maintains some active open source activity on GitHub, where he published several high profile repos with over 500 stars.

Or is married + has a baby girl and loves photography and open source projects.

Marc Jaffe is a partner in the New York office. Mr. Jaffe is the global Chair of the Corporate Department and former global Co-chair of the firm’s Capital Markets Practice. His practice centers on corporate finance and general securities and corporate matters. His clients include US and foreign investment banks, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq-listed companies, non-US corporations, private equity funds and mezzanine investment funds. Mr. Jaffe has substantial experience representing issuers, investment banking firms and investors in public and private debt and equity offerings and lending transactions of all kinds in industries, including: entertainment, financial services, gaming, hospitality, manufacturing, energy, media and telecommunications, technology and retail.

Athena Karp is the founder and CEO of HiredScore, an artificial intelligence HR technology company that powers the global Fortune 500. HiredScore leverages the power of data science and machine learning to deliver deep hiring efficiencies, enhance talent mobility, and help organizations adapt for the future of work. HiredScore has won best-in-class industry recognition and honors for best solution delivering business value and transformation in the HR industry.

Prior to founding HiredScore, Athena was an investor in New York, most recently at Altaris Capital, where she managed and sourced healthcare investments in highly regulated data environments. Previously, she was an Investment Banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, focused on public technology and media companies.

Athena is a member of the technology advisory board of Belmont Charter Network schools, and founder and board member of Belmont Sprouts, which builds urban gardens and healthy eating experiences. She was a former board member and advisor for efforts to alleviate poverty and improve the public education system in West Philadelphia, through Community Education Alliance’s network of charter schools with +1,000 disadvantaged students, focused on preparing youth with skills for the future of work.

Athena holds a BSFS in international politics from Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service. She is a member of the 2018 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers.

Michal Katz is Co-head of the Technology Investment Banking Group at RBC, where she advises corporations, boards and financial sponsors in developing and executing corporate finance and M&A strategies.

Michal is a member of the firm's Regional Operating Committee US and serves on the Innovation Council tasked with advancing the firm's global businesses with new technologies.

Prior to joining RBC, Michal was a Managing Director with Barclays (formerly Lehman Brothers), where she was the global head of Software Investment Banking. Michal also spent several years with the law firms of Skadden, Arps and Winthrop Stimson (now Pillsbury Winthrop), where she practiced corporate law including executing equity and debt financings and mergers and acquisitions.

Michal is a community leader with a history of not-for-profit board service. Michal currently serves as Trustee and Chair of the Finance Committee on the board of the GRAMMY Museum, whose mission is to support music education and cultivate the understanding of music's role in American culture. Michal sits on the Leadership Council of Tech: NYC, a non-profit that represents New York City's growing technology ecosystem.

Michal was recognized by Crain's as a Notable Women in Finance (2018).

Ms. Katz received her BA with honors from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a JD from New York University School of Law.

Joshua Kiernan is Co-Chair of Latham & Watkins' Israel Practice and focuses on international capital markets transactions, securities regulation and cross-border mergers and acquisitions.

Joshua has extensive experience advising Israeli technology companies on SEC-registered IPOs, follow-on and secondary offerings, block trades, private placements, and Rule 144A offerings. In addition, his practice includes advising on a variety of debt offerings (including high yield and sovereign bonds), and cross-border M&A, joint ventures and leveraged buyouts.

Mr. Kiernan assists clients with SEC-compliance and corporate governance matters, as well as Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) issues.

Jay Klein drives Voyager Labs technology strategy and core intellectual property. He brings more than 25 years of experience in data analytics, networking and telecommunications to the Company.

Before joining Voyager Labs, he served as CTO at Allot Communications where he steered Allot's data inspection and analytics core technology offerings, and as VP Strategic Business Development at DSPG, where he was responsible for strategic technology acquisitions. He also co-founded and held the CTO position at Ensemble Communications while founding and creating WiMAX and IEEE 802.16. He also served as the CTO and VP of R&D at CTP Systems, acquired first by DSP Communications and later by Intel.

Jay Klein holds a BSc in Electronics & Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University as well as numerous patents in various technology fields.

For over 25 years Arik has been founding, growing and financing innovative technology companies. He co-founded Glilot Capital with the intention of bringing his vast experience gained from the early days of the Israeli startup industry to the investment decisions and ongoing support of the Glilot portfolio.

Arik took his first steps in the Venture Capital world during the 90’s when he worked at Jerusalem Global Ventures, one of first central investors in the Israeli VC industry. During the five years he spent there, Arik was at the forefront of a rapidly growing industry, where he gained firsthand experience in selecting and financing early stage startups.

Arik has also worked for Bank Tefachot Provident Funds, an Israeli institutional investor, as an investments manager and assistant director.

Between 2002-2010 Arik lived in the US where he served in financial and operational executive roles in three Israeli innovative technology companies with US Based HQ: ECtel (acquisition by Verint), VideoCodes (acquired by Thomson) and Intercure (IPO). Arik holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Management from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and an MBA in Finance & Technology Management from Tel Aviv University’s Kellogg- Recanati School of Management.

Arik is a board member of IATI (Israel Advanced Technology Industries) and of the Technion Friends Society.

Mixtiles is a photo that sticks to walls without nails. It's made from photos your have on your phone. It's easy to order, it's easy to hang, it's affordable and beautiful. It's the next generation of wall decoration. Mixtiles has been founded three years ago by David Katz and Eytan Levit. Since then, more than three million Mixtiles have been sold worldwide, and the company's growth is accelerating. Eytan's day to day role in Mixtiles is being it's VP Talent, he's responsible for identifying and attracting the world's best talent in software, industrial engineering, marketing, operations and customer service. Mixtiles is Eytan's fourth company and his biggest success so far. Eytan splits his time between Tel Aviv and New York, where the company has offices.

Lotan has been an early stage technology investor since 2012 in the areas of IoT, Digital Health and Enterprise IT, and was responsible for Grove’s investments in 3D-Signals, Lumigo and Rapid API. 
Prior to joining Grove, Lotan was a Strategic Consultant at TASC, an international management consultancy firm where he focused on the Telecommunication sector. 

Previously he has practiced as a Tax Attorney at Eitan-Mehulal Law Group. 
Lotan served as a commander in an elite Israeli Air Force Intelligence unit. During his service he was honored with an Award of Excellence and took part of a team that was nominated for a Lifetime Achievement Award by the head of Unit 8200 (Israel’s NSA). 

Lotan holds a Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree (BA) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel.

Leonard (Lenny) Levy is an accomplished information security executive with over 20 years experience addressing cybersecurity challenges.

Most recently he served as vice president, chief information security officer of Spectrum Health, a $6.1 billion not-for-profit integrated health system in West Michigan. Lenny was responsible for aligning risk-based strategic security initiatives with enterprise programs and business objectives to ensure information assets and technology platforms are appropriately protected across the entire system.

He led an organization of experienced risk and information security professionals focused on embedding security into the organization, mitigating security risks, detecting potential incidents, and responding to issues.

His leadership of the information security program supported an innovative, robust, and secure information technology environment throughout the organization.

Prior to joining Spectrum Health in 2016, Lenny consulted on cybersecurity topics for organizations around the world with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) LLP based in the United States and Singapore. At PwC he established track record of successfully managing large-scale complex projects, developing risk-driven security programs and delivering solutions that supported critical business initiatives. Example client experience at PwC included transforming security programs, helping organizations securely leverage public and private clouds, responding to data breaches, addressing evolving regulatory requirements and implementing pragmatic solutions to reduce risk.

Yanki has been engaged with Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security for more than thirty years. In 1984 he developed KnowPro, an Artificial Intelligence Software program to help human experts in their decision-making processes. To protect his software against piracy and illegal use, Yanki invented HASP, a Hardware-based software protection key. With these two products he started Aladdin Knowledge Systems in 1985.

Under his leadership as Chairman and CEO, Aladdin grew to become a profitable global company (Nasdaq/ALDN) employing 600 people in ten countries and serving tens of thousands of software developers and corporate clients around the world. In 2009, with US$150M in annual sales, Aladdin was acquired by a US private-equity fund.

Since then, Yanki has been busy thinking and speaking about technology, entrepreneurship, innovation, and human evolution, while nurturing a new love affair with molecular biology and biotechnology. His most popular lecture is titled - "Entrepreneurship, Technology, Evolution, and Singularity".

From 2011 to 2015 Yanki was the Chairman of SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit organization competing in the Google Lunar X-prize, with the goal of landing a spaceship on the moon by the year 2018.

Yanki is an investor in several technology companies. He is currently involved with a Singularity Incubator that will seek to support and nourish early-stage technology start-ups that aim to address humanity’s greatest challenges and improve our lives.

Mr. Raviv Melamed is the Co-Founder of Vayyar Imaging Ltd and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. He served as Vice President of Mobility Group and General Manager of Mobile Wireless Group for Intel Corporation. Mr. Melamed was in charge of research, development and operation of wireless products for various Intel platforms. He served as the Director of Engineering for the mobile WiMAX Chipset group. Mr. Melamed joined Intel in 2004 as part of Intel's acquisition of Envara, Inc., where he served as vice president of R&D. He served several roles in the military where he dealt with project management and system engineering of large-scale communication and radar systems spanning from acoustic to Ka band. He has co-authored several papers in the areas of airborne reconnaissance, infrared technology and laser communications. Mr. Melamed holds a BSC and MSC in electrical engineering from Ben-Gurion University.

Eyal Miller is the Vice President and General Manager Samsung NEXT Tel Aviv. Samsung NEXT, offers tailored support to startups at every level, from idea to scale. Samsung NEXT is located in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, Berlin and Korea.

As an expert in entrepreneurial businesses and corporate development, Eyal specializes in early-stage venture development, strategic initiatives and strategies for scaling startups. He was featured in Business Insider as one of the The Most Influential Israelis in Tech Worldwide 2014 and in The Marker Magazine as one of The Most Influential Israelis in Tech 2013.

Prior to joining Samsung, Eyal co-founded the Google Campus in Tel Aviv, and served as Head of New Business and Corporate Development for Google Israel and a member of the EMEA Business Development team. 

He holds his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management and an MBA from Recanati School of Business at Tel Aviv University.

Ranny Nachmias has 15 years of experience in customer successes, business operations and product sales. Ranny has held executive leadership roles such as VP Customer Experience and Service Operations at LivePerson as well as the establishment of the global customer success operations at Dynamic Yield Before that, leading global pre-sales teams and infrastructure support at Amdocs.

Eyal Niv joined Pitango in October 2015 as a Managing General Partner. Prior to joining Pitango, Eyal was Managing Partner at Giza VC, where he led the operation of the fund and focused mainly on IT infrastructure, Semiconductors & Internet.

Among the investments, Eyal was involved in were XtremIO (acquired by EMC), CrossWise (acquired by Oracle), Pebbles (acquired by Facebook), Oplus (acquired by Intel), Cyota (acquired by RSA & later acquired by EMC), Odysii (acquired by Gilbarco Inc.) In addition, Eyal was involved in the following investments: LogzIO – Machine Data Analytics, CrossWise – Cross device infrastructure, CallApp – Social mobile identity provider, Altair Semiconductors – LTE chipset provider (acquired by Sony), AdExtent – An Adtech company, Lucid – Embedded power management for mobile devices.

Prior to that, Eyal was an Analyst at Giza Financial Advisory where he advised large and public clients on M&A transaction and financial valuations. Eyal is also a Co-Founder of The Public Knowledge Workshop – a leading non-profit organization for freedom of information.

As the Global Head of William Blair’s venture capital team, Jim O’Connor draws on his deep experience and relationships throughout the technology and financial industries to connect today’s most innovative companies with visionary sources of capital. Throughout his career, Mr. O’Connor has been dedicated to promoting and advising Chicago’s start-up ecosystem. He is co-founder and former CEO of 1871, Chicago’s premier digital co-working space, and founder of the Chicago Entrepreneurial Center

Born in Israel in 1971, Adi Ofek Studied Business Administration & Finance at Tel Aviv University and graduated her MBA in 1998. 

Adi Ofek served in several management positions in Daimler since 2000 and holds International management experience. In April 2000 she joined Daimler Financial Services Israel LTD. in Tel Aviv, Israel as Credit Risk Manager. In November 2007, she took over new responsibility as Regional Credit Operations Director of Africa and Asia Pacific of Daimler South East Asia. Pte., in Singapore. From January 2014 to September 2016 Ms. Ofek was heading Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Korea as CEO.  Since October 2016,  Adi Ofek is CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research & Development in Tel Aviv.

CEO and Co-Founder of Kzen Networks, a company focused on cutting-edge technology to improve the security and user experience of crypto-assets. Co-founder of ISAI (VC), former General Manager of Gemini Lightspeed Internet Lab.

Jason Paltrowitz is Executive Vice President, Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group, where he is responsible for managing the firm's international and domestic Corporate Services business.

Drawing upon his expertise in cross-border trading and as a recognized proponent of Reg A+ and small company capital raising, Jason is an advocate for small cap issuers, start-ups, and entrepreneurial innovators working to alleviate the cost, time and complexity associated with being a public company.

Prior to joining OTC Markets in October 2013, Jason was Managing Director and Segment Head at JP Morgan Chase responsible for the custody, clearing and collateral management business in the Corporate and Investment Bank division.

Jason also held multiple senior management positions at BNY Mellon, most notably, as Head of M&A for the Financial Markets and Treasury Services Sector and 11 years as the Head of the Global Capital Markets Group in the Depositary Receipt Division.

Jason currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA) and also served as a member of the Board of Directors at OTC Markets Group from 2008-2011. Jason holds a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from Boston University and received his MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.

Boaz is a Director at Qualcomm Ventures and focuses on investments in Israel across various domains.

Before joining Qualcomm ventures, Boaz led Qualcomm business development in Israel in various domains such as mobile, automotive and IOT (also across Europe). In this role Boaz has successfully built from the ground up a 3rd party ecosystem of startups collaborating with Qualcomm, from proof of concept phase to commercialization.

Prior to this role, Boaz led Qualcomm Israel program management group. Before joining Qualcomm Boaz worked at Rafael and previously as an Intelligence officer in IDF.

Boaz has MBA and BSc. at information systems both from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

Mr. Pinto is a well respected executive with over 25 years of global experience in technical leadership in support of designing, architecting and delivery of solutions to address business needs across multiple technical disciplines.

Haim joined Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest bank, in 2016 after spending 12 years in New York working in the financial services industry. He is currently the CTO of the bank, leading a highly skilled team of technology evangelists focused on disruptive technologies. In his role Haim is also responsible of leading the banks interface with Fintech oriented startups and technology firms while developing new business modules and exploring future revenue streams. Haim's group is forming strategic partnerships with relevant institutions such as financial firms, investment firms, higher education establishments and large scale domestic and international companies. As CTO , Haim is has a key role in shaping and leading the creation of the future banking experience in Israel and defining the banks future state.

Prior to joining Bank Hapoalim, Haim worked for Morgan Stanley in New York where he served as the global head of Client Experience in the firms Enterprise infrastructure CTO office. Haim was responsible for leading the firm’s strategy and vision for Client Experience (CX), Unified Communication and Collaboration (UCC), Mobility, BYOD, Social Media Enablement, Customer digital engagement and disruptive innovation. Haim lead Morgan Stanley’s vision for how the corporate workspace will look in the next few years, developing unique perspective on market trends and opportunities for the firm, this includes addressing changes in application development practices, endpoint security and cyber challenges to mitigate Data Leakage risks (DLP) as SaaS based services drive Financial Services organizations to consider Cloud adoption.

Jonathan Pulitzer is a Managing Director in the energy practice for GE Ventures and acts as the organization’s lead regional presence in Israel and Europe. He relocated from the US in 2011 to focus on the Israeli and European technology markets. He has been involved with more than a dozen investments during his nine years of investing across Ventures and GE Capital, having served at the board level, including active investments in Israel, Europe and the US.

He joined GE in 2005 with the Financial Management Program where he served various business functions across GE Capital, including Commercial Aviation Services, Capital Markets and Equity, while completing GE’s executive training program. Jonathan earned his BA in economics and business from New York University. He lives in Israel with his wife and three young children.

Zohar Rozenberg (Col. Ret.) is the Vice President of Cyber Investments at Elron, a leading Israeli holding company dedicated to building technology companies, actively investing in startup companies.

He is also acting as Member of the Board for a number of cyber companies and as a member at R.D.C., the commercialization arm of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in a full partnership with Elron Electronic Industries (TASE: ELRN). Zohar served in 8200 for over 20 years leading high-risk, high-innovation organizations and projects, with a track record in cultivating new technological initiatives as well as brilliant and skilled personal.

Zohar was involved in the establishment of the National cyber bureau and the formalization of the Israeli national cyber strategy. He retired after serving as the Head of I.D.F's Cyber Department.

Amongst other achievements, Zohar was responsible for developing nationwide cyber educational programs and working with the Israeli office of education and philanthropy organizations to help place Israel as a global leader in cyber technology.

Zohar holds a B.S. in Electric and Electrical Engineering and an M.B.A. from Tel Aviv University.

Zohar also holds the 2008 Israeli highest defense award.

Gil Sadeh, Co-founder and CEO of Signals Analytics Prior to co-founding Signals, Gil served as a military intelligence and reconnaissance consultant for several defense-related governmental entities throughout the world, utilizing his vast experience honed as a commanding officer in an elite special forces unit of the Israel Defense Forces.

He is a frequent guest lecturer and editorial contributor on the application of open source and signals intelligence to drive innovation, delight customers and reduce the risk of commercial decision making. Gil holds an LLB and MA in Government, Diplomacy and Strategy from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel.

Alon Sahar is a partner in the corporate and securities group as well as in the technology department.

Alon has over 20 years’ experience representing Israeli and international clients in a wide range of sophisticated transactions, including some of the largest transactions completed in Israel. In addition, Alon has invaluable experience advising emerging growth companies in all stages of their development; he has a deep understanding of how technology companies are formed, financed, grown and taken public or acquired.

Alon advises companies at all stages of their development, from initial funding through IPOs and mergers. He and his team have a "virtual general counsel" approach - providing company executives and managers with a single point of accountability for all their legal needs. 
Alon has repeatedly been selected and ranked as a "Band 1" lawyer by Chambers Global Guide and Legal 500.

Bio Brig. General (Ret) Ehud Schneorson is a 30-year veteran of the Israeli Intelligence community, most recently serving as the commander of the Unit 8200 - the Israel CYBER and SIGINT National Unit responsible for cyber operations,collecting signal intelligence and code decryption. He has commanded units focused on intelligence gathering, special operations and technology development. Some of his previous roles include heading the cryptanalyst center of Unit 8200 as well as overseeing the development and deployment of cutting edge cybersecurity, big data and IoT capabilities. General Schenorson has a MSc in Geophysics and planetary science and a BA in history, both from the Tel Aviv University. He is married to Ruth and the proud father of Itay and Keren.

Daniel is CEO and co-founder of Lemonade, the insurance carrier powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics. His previous roles include President of Powermat, and SVP Global Marketing and General Manager at SanDisk.

Daniel was VP Business Development & Marketing at msystems, which SanDisk acquired for $1.6B. Daniel began his career as a corporate-commercial attorney.

Yoav Shoham is a professor (emeritus) of computer science at Stanford University. He is a fellow of AAAI, ACM, and the Game Theory Society, and among his awards are the AAAI/ACM Allen Newell Award and the IFAAMAS Autonomous Agents Research Award.

He is a founder of several AI companies, including TradingDynamics (ARBA), Emeritus (GOOG), Timeful (GOOG), and AI21. He is also chair of the AI Index (aiindex.org), a non-profit project to track activities and progress in AI.

Dr. Aya Soffer is VP of AI Tech for the IBM Research AI organization.

The mission of the AI Tech Researchers is to create world-class foundational AI technologies for business while advancing state-of-the-art AI capabilities for understanding and interacting naturally with data of all kinds.

Dr. Soffer sets the strategy, works with IBM scientists around the world to help shape their ideas into new AI technology, and with IBM’s product groups and customers to drive Research innovation into the market.

In her 19 years at IBM, Dr. Soffer has led several strategic initiatives that grew into successful IBM products and solutions. Her team worked on the original Watson system, and more recently on the Project Debater.

She has authored over 50 papers, served as an invited speaker in numerous conferences, and delivered a TEDMED talk

Founder and Managing director of MT Innovation Ventures, an advisory and business innovation builder in financial services for the 21st century. Until Recently Moshe was Global Head of Digital Transformation at Generali, one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Previously He was Generali global head of innovation. Prior to this, Moshe was Deputy CEO and CMO of Migdal Insurance, Israel’s largest insurance company.

Co-Founder and VP of Engineering at Next Insurance. Next Insurance provides simple, affordable and tailored online insurance service for small businesses.

Before founding Next Insurance, he was VP of R&D at Check, Inc. that was acquired by Intuit in 2014. Nissim has a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics, Tel- Aviv University, Cum Laude.

Yoram is the Managing partner of EY Israel, the largest accounting firm in Israel. Yoram has been spending most of my career helping the high tech sector globally and in Israel in particular.

With background deeply rooted in the research and development Yoram manage to weave together his knowledge and desire with his job.  Yoram has been working with some of the best entrepreneurs and the best developments there is. Fascinated by the way technology enables a profound change in our life and the way we live, combined with healthy curios nature Yoram has been able to use his experience to take part of their journey and help many entrepreneurs achieve their dreams and goals.

Yoram has a vast experience working with entrepreneurs and startups on strategy, finance, growth and fulfillment and with big corporation on similar issues.

With over 30 years of experience Yoram has participated in many M&A’s and IPO’s on NASDAQ and the European and Tel Aviv Public Capital Markets.  Yoram has helped many clients in a multitude of issues advising management on strategy, growth and Innovation.

BA in accounting and economics (honors) from Tel Aviv University.

Dr. Mihaela Ulieru is a scholar of distributed intelligent systems, having pioneered a series of technologies that are bundled under the collective name of “Blockchain”, which consists of over 200 peer reviewed publications, hundreds of invited keynotes and talks, advisor to governments on the adoption of emerging technologies to improve the lives of citizens, as well as mentor to many successful entrepreneurs.

In the beginning of her career she advised Garret Camp, the co-founder of Uber and founder of StumbleUpon on his MSc Thesis. Dr. Ulieru advocated to include blockchain among the Top 10 future and emerging technologies at the World Economic Forum in 2016. Currently she is an innovator at the edge of the impossible for Endor (aka Chief Alchemist) – an MIT start-up bringing a series of breakthrough innovations to enable predictive analytics as a shared service on blockchain.

Assaf Wand is the co-founder and CEO of insurtech startup Hippo. Based in Mountain View, CA, the company is reimagining home insurance through the lens of homeowners – building policies with more comprehensive coverage for today's consumers at up to 25% less than competitors.

Prior to Hippo, Wand was founder and CEO of Sabi, which designed and produced elegant everyday products (Sabi was acquired in 2015), a consultant with McKinsey & Company and an investor with Intel Capital. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA in finance and LLB in Law from the IDC Herzliya in Israel.

Merav is a Managing Director with Qualcomm Ventures Israel and oversees all investments in Israel. She currently serves as a board member or observer for Mantis Vision, ScyllaDB, Magisto, Splacer, Stratoscale, TabTale, Tapingo, Weka.io, and Zeek. She was also active in the BOD of Panoramic Power (acquired by Direct Energy) and Corrigon (acquired by EBay).

Merav has more than 15 years of high-tech and venture capital experience. Prior to joining Qualcomm Ventures, she was at Intel Capital, and at Pitango Venture Capital. During these years, Merav led and was involved in several investments including: Convergin (acquired by Oracle); Boxee (acquired by Samsung); LiveU; Kaminario; Forescout and many more.

Merav holds a B.Sc. in Information Systems Engineering (cum laude) from the Technion, and an MBA from INSEAD, France. Merav is also the founder and on the steering committee of the Women Founders Forum; an organization that encourages and supports female tech entrepreneurs.

Marianne is the President of GE Ventures, where she is responsible for the company’s overall investment strategy spanning manufacturing & supply chain, energy & mobility, and healthcare & life sciences.

Her team also creates strategic optionality for GE by investing in potentially disruptive products and services across machine learning, robotics, autonomy, security and IoT.

Marianne holds a Ph.D. in Engineering from Stanford University and earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia, where she also serves on the advisory board.

Guy Yamen is co-founder and managing partner of TPY Capital, an Israel based VC which had recently raised its second fund, and is focused on early revenue enterprise startups.

Prior to launching TPY, he spent a few years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, in their New York and Tel Aviv offices.

As part of Guy’s commitment to societal change, he co-founded Prize4Life, a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the discovery of treatments and cures for ALS. In another non-profit, MEET (Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow), bringing together Israeli and Palestinian youth in learning computer science and entrepreneurship, Guy has recently helped spearhead the formation of MEET’s virtual learning hub. He’s also a Fellow of the fifth class of the Middle East Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Guy received an MBA from Harvard Business School as well as a BA in economics and an LL.B, both from Tel Aviv University.

Mark is a Partner in Ernst & Young’s European supply chain centre of excellence and has over 30 years supply chain experience in industry and consulting. Following an initial Manufacturing career with Pirelli Tyres Mark joined Coopers & Lybrand in 1987. Mark has severed as a Supply Chain Strategy Leader for EY, PwC and IBM. While with IBM, Mark served on the Industry Panel, selecting software acquisitions that were suitable for Industrialisation and Scale Up. Today his special focus is the application of Digital Technologies in Manufacturing and Supply Chain Processes.

Jack is a Partner and the Head of Venture Capital at Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners. He serves as a Board Member / Observer at: Aryaka, NS1, Paxata, Fastly and Skorpios on behalf of DTCP.

Prior to joining DTCP, he was the Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures North America and General Partner at dRx Capital – a joint Novartis and Qualcomm investment company.

He made investments in: Airstrip, AliveCor, Doctor On Demand, goBalto, Jana, Omada, Visage and Welltok. His exits included: ClearCare (acquired by Battery), Telcare (Acquired by BioTelemetry), Validity (acquired by Synaptics), and Fitbit (NYSE: FIT).

Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions at ZTE (USA), Nokia, 3Com, GDC, and Nortel. Jack earned a MSEE from University of Calgary and a MBA from McGill University.

Maya is a crypto veteran, having worked in the space for 5 years, following the evolution from Bitocin, to enterprise blockchain, and the ICO hype. She founded Ontici, a proof based capital market leveraging the financial infrastructure blockchain provides with private computational technology, to offer a new generation of securities. Prior to crypto, Maya worked in private equity and managed nation wide Financial IT projects.

Neatsun Ziv is Check Point Software Technologies’ VP of Threat Prevention & Intelligence since 2016. In this capacity Ziv leads Check Point’s R & D teams and its main products. Prior to this position, Ziv served as the company’s Director of Secure Cloud since 2011. Before joining Check Point, Ziv served 5 years in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Intelligence Unit. After completing his Army Service, he went on to found Vanadium (RawAnalysis) where he continued to hold the position of CEO for seven years.