20MinuteLeaders

Shimon served in the Israeli Air Force for 11 years in several managerial and commanding positions. Multiple near-death weather-related experiences during his service stoked a fascination with the weather, that little thing that affects us all. He’s also passionate about soccer and can recall any statistic whether you ask him to or not. Shimon holds a BA in economics from Ben Gurion University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Noa Asher was appointed as CEO of NTT Innovation Laboratory Israel on July first. NTT Israel serves as the focal point for NTT Group companies in Israel and their mission is to bring value to NTT by collaborating with Israeli companies and academia in various fields. NTT is one of the major players in the Japanese communication market and is considered a Fortune 100 company, with over $ 100 billion annual sales, more than 300,000 employees worldwide, operating in 80+ countries.

From 2014-2020 Noa served as the Economic Minister at the Israeli Embassy in Tokyo where she was in charge of promoting trade and investments between Israel and Japan, supporting the revolution that happened during this time in the business relations between Israel and Japan. Noa joined the ministry of Economy in 2002 and held several positions at the foreign trade administration and the innovation authority including the commercial attaché in Chicago. Previously she was a legal advisor in a group of start-up companies.

Yoav is leading Upstream's strategic direction, culture and business execution, with over 17 years of experience in multi-national high-tech companies and start-ups. He brings rich leadership experience in management, marketing and business development of IT and security products spanning over a dozen years of experience in category-leading vendors such as Check Point, Juniper Networks and Broadcom.

Yair Benyamini is the Co-founder and CEO of Lendai. Prior to founding Lendai, Yair headed the Cross Border Transactions and the Business Development of one of Israel's leading law firms. In that capacity, he took part in global multi-million dollar transactions in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Yair has more than 15 years of experience leading large-scale operations, including in the IDF and several NGOs. Yair is also the Chairman of SpaceGirlz, a non-profit organization promoting space and science studies for young girls aiming to build the next generation of women scientists.

Lotan has been an early-stage technology investor since 2012, with a special interest in IoT, Digital Health, Trust and Safety, Cloud Infrastructure and Enterprise IT. He currently serves on the boards of ActiveFence, 3DSignals, Lumigo, RapidAPI, BeyondMinds and Navina. Lotan is also the founder of the Israeli Industrial IoT Forum and the II4 Conference. Prior to joining Grove Ventures, Lotan was a Strategic Consultant at TASC, an international management consultancy firm, where he focused on the Telecommunication sector. Lotan served as a commander in an elite Israeli Air Force Intelligence unit, where he was honored with an Award of Excellence. He holds a Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree (BA) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Chen Admati, Platform General Manager and VP product @ Explorium. Explorium provides an External Data Platform that automatically discovers relevant data signals to improve advanced analytics and accelerate business outcomes. Prior to joining Explorium, Chen was a staff member at Intel’s AI internal unit and the founder of Intel® Pharma Analytics Platform. Chen holds a BSc. in Information System Engineering from Ben-Gurion University. Honorably listed in ’40 under 40’ by Globes magazine in 2018

Robert Cohen is Managing Director of Benson Oak Ventures, an early-stage VC fund based in Israel focused on B2C, Digital SMB and all things related to the passion economy (what it dubs "passionware").  Benson Oak has deployed capital across Europe, the US and Israel for 20 years, and Robert enjoys a deep understanding of the technology market for consumers and small businesses, including operational experience in building global brands and developing and scaling business models, including one of most successful venture capital investments in consumer security - AVG.   A dual US-Israeli citizen, Robert is originally from Philadelphia, spent 18 years in Prague before moving to Israel almost a decade ago.

Yoni is a serial entrepreneur who started his journey as a software engineer at Microsoft. Having completed his MBA at Harvard, Yoni joined RPX Corp as a founding member of the insurance business. After RPX went public, Yoni left RPX to co-found and merge a fund into Fortress Investment Group where he spent six years as an investor. Yoni moved to Israel and launched Laguna Health, a digital recovery assurance company, with his longtime friend and colleague from Microsoft Yael Peled Adam.

Pini Yakuel is the founder and CEO of Optimove, provider of the leading CRM Marketing platform. Pini’s extensive experience in analytics-driven marketing, business consulting and sales, along with his innovative approaches to entrepreneurship and business-building, have earned him recognition as a thought leader. Pini has led Optimove to become a market leader, with hundreds of brands using his company’s software and services to orchestrate and automate highly effective personalized CRM.

Lior Shalev is one of Israel’s most passionate voices for transforming society through the combination of tech and social entrepreneurship and promoting the double impact ecosystem in Israel. He is the CEO and co-founder of Algaemor an Agritech startup that grows fresh Spirulina –microalgae as a sustainable food source and plant-based protein. Algaemor is addressing the most fundamental global issues of the Foodtech and Agritech sectors: from malnutrition and food insecurity to the protein gap and implication of industrialized food.