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Iman R. Kassis
Ms. Kassis has a B.A. in Economics and Accounting (Auditing) from Haifa University, as well as an Education Certificate in Accounting and Business Administration from WIZO-Canada College. She has held a number of positions in teaching, accounting and management, and now has a very busy life, dividing her time between the public and private sectors. Iman`s education also includes teaching economics, accounting and management at Rama High School (where she introduced the subject of management), lecturing and preparing school programs in entrepreneurship at the Jewish Arab Center for Economic Development, managing a private institute of complementary and professional studies, and giving private lessons in her field. She also acts as a consultant to small businesses and (on a voluntary basis) to non- profit organizations, particularly those that deal with women's issues and progress, mainly in the Israeli Arab sector.
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Her interests in women's affairs have extended to participation in several professional conferences such as “Women Against Violence” in Nazareth, and Mediterranean Businesswomen's “Network Workshop” in Cyprus, where she represented Arab Israeli women.
Iman is extremely hardworking and dedicated to increasing her knowledge of her field. Apart from taking several courses in related areas (income tax studies, accounting software, entrepreneurship, NGO management etc.), she is a member of the International Library of Business, and reads widely and intensively on topics such as management, international business administration, marketing and sales promotion and so on. Yet she also finds time to listen to classical music, play the guitar, read poetry, and be active in several non-for-profit organizations.
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Carsten Klocke
Carsten Klocke comes from a family of entrepreneurs in his native Germany, and he knew from a young age that this was the direction he would take as well. Soon after leaving school, he worked for the Prodata GmbH in Karlsruhe, in the field of Marketing and Databases, gaining hands-on experience of the business. In 1995 he began formal studies in Business and Administration at the University Business School of Pforzheim, Germany, specializing in Marketing. In the meantime, he spent a year at theUniversita Degli Studi Di Ancona in Italy, studying for the European Business Certificate with a scholarship from the European Community.
When Carsten heard about ISEMI, he was attracted by the practical nature of the program, as well as its Israeli environment. Apart from sports of various kinds, his great love is traveling, and ISEMI offers him the chance to acquire a business education rooted in the real needs of real businesses, while working with Israeli students on projects of relevance in the world of international business, where Carsten sees his future.During his studies at ISEMI, Carsten was introduced to the many start-ups of his fellow students. He chose to invest in comITcom, an e-commerce company of which he became the Managing Director for Europe.
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Nadav Kenneth
At first sight, the Israel Defense Forces may not seem a natural breeding ground for entrepreneurs, but after 22 years service in the Intelligence Corps, Nadav Kenneth has amassed a wealth of experience in initiating and managing large-scale and long-term activities and projects, and is eager to employ his skills in the civilian world. As a modern army, the IDF is highly reliant on new technologies, and Nadav's career has been solidly based in technology-intensive activities. He began as a programmer, analyst and section head in a real-time computing lab, which led to a two year stint as part of a development team at GTE in California. On his return to Israel he obtained a BA in Social Sciences and moved into the second phase of his army career, as head of a strategic planning division. In this role Nadav had overall control of planning and management activities and projects. He gained first hand experience of analyzing a technological environment in order to identify strengths, threats and optimal solutions, for typically long-term projects with budgets of millions of dollars.
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In his last Army role, Nadav was Commanding Officer of an operational center with a staff of 200, with responsibility for the design, operational research and assimilation of large, technology-intensive systems. In this function, he found that technological planning and analysis must be accompanied by a strong element of marketing when new computing strategies are introduced into non-computerized environments. Again, the projects he managed were long-term and high budget efforts. During this phase, Nadav also started looking at opportunities outside the army, and on a voluntary basis has been acting as informal consultant to a high-tech start up company. At that time the company had only a technical idea and a demo model. Nadav helped to define product, target market and positioning; to plan company structure and construct its business plan. Nadav became the CEO of the Israeli arm of this company, Maximal Innovative Intelligence, Inc., Which was sold to Microsoft® in 2001 for $US 40,000,000.
Yifat Jaffe Gill
Yifat Jaffe Gill’s expertise lies in the field of marketing. On leaving the army she took a course in public relations and advertising, run by the Technion in Haifa. Her first job involved publicity and marketing for a number of publications produced by the “Golden Pages” company: a weekly tourist magazine (“This week in Israel”), and a prestigious magazine for the food industry (“Food & Kitchen”). During her nine years in this position, Yifat completed a further course on marketing and advertising in the framework of the Faculty of Business Management at Tel-Aviv University, and two years later, received a B.A. with honors in Political Science. Yifat was later appointed Marketing Manager of Ma’an, the Chamber of Commerce & Industry for Women in Israel. Her job involved setting up a marketing system from scratch, covering telemarketing activities and commercial management of the organization’s own magazine named, “Woman Entrepreneur”. |
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After completing a course for women directors at Ma’an, Yifat served for three years on the board of Sun D’Or Airlines Ltd. At the same time she was employed as General Manager of “Tel-Aviv Conferences”, initiating, organizing and marketing conferences aimed at business people in all sectors in Israel. Yifat now heads her own company, called “Shivuk Achshavi” (“Marketing Now”), which specializes in providing marketing and business consultancy, managing marketing projects, initiating marketing ideas, setting up marketing and sales arrangements, promoting business enterprises and providing selling skills for managers and business owners. She is also joint General Manager of “Otzma Be-Yazamut” (“Strength in Enterprise”) group. Following her studies at ISEMI, Yifat created "Start-Smart", which focuses on consulting to hightech start-ups.
Dr. Pinhas Kfir
Dr. Pinhas Kfir's career spans the unlikely combination of medicine, dentistry, law and economics. He completed his dentistry studies in 1989 at Tel Aviv University, and by the following year showed his natural entrepreneurial bent by opening his own practice, which he ran successfully for 10 years. Eventually the clinic included several specialist dentists, and Pinhas believes that their success was due to team work and an uncompromising commitment to quality - and ISEMI would certainly confirm this belief.
At the same time Pinhas conducted post-graduate research in dentistry and for a short time was a member of the faculty at the TA School of Dentistry. While still involved in his dental practice, Pinhas studied Capital Markets in the Bar Ilan School of Economics, and later acquired a law degree from the same University.After joining the Israeli Legal Chamber, he joined a private legal practice and began to specialize in International Trade Law, with the focus on high technology enterprises. Naturally enough, he is particularly drawn towards companies in the fields of biotechnology entrepreneurship and medicine.
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Pinhas was also involved in his own startup company at one point, providing significant creative input to the design of an extra safe bicycle helmet. Today he enjoys being involved in the activities of new biotechnology companies, and hopes that the knowledge and skills he acquired at ISEMI will assist him in the administration of large projects.
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Mr. Daniel Hackim
Dr. Pinhas Kfir's career spans the unlikely combination of medicine, dentistry, law and economics. He completed his dentistry studies in 1989 at Tel Aviv University, and by the following year showed his natural entrepreneurial bent by opening his own practice, which he ran successfully for 10 years. Eventually the clinic included several specialist dentists, and Pinhas believes that their success was due to team work and an uncompromising commitment to quality - and ISEMI would certainly confirm this belief.
At the same time Pinhas conducted post-graduate research in dentistry and for a short time was a member of the faculty at the TA School of Dentistry. While still involved in his dental practice, Pinhas studied Capital Markets in the Bar Ilan School of Economics, and later acquired a law degree from the same University.After joining the Israeli Legal Chamber, he joined a private legal practice and began to specialize in International Trade Law, with the focus on high technology enterprises. Naturally enough, he is particularly drawn towards companies in the fields of biotechnology and medicine.
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Amir Freund
Amir Freund completed a B.Sc. at the Technion in Haifa in the framework of the IDF Academic Reserve program, and then joined the Mamdas unit of the Israel Air Force, which is responsible for software development for IAF avionic and radar systems. Amir remained in the IAF until 1991, including three years as part of the IAF project management team developing the MMRS Radar System at Norden Technologies in Connecticut, and then helping with the development and testing of the system in Israel. Amir then began accumulating knowledge of Wireless systems: for four years he was software group manager for a telecom company in Herzliya, working on Wireless Local Loop (WLL) development; and for two years he was project manager for another telecom company in Petach Tikva, where he managed the development of a WLL Personal Communication System for the US market.
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Equipped with this thorough experience, in 1996 Amir became co-founder of Floware Wireless Systems, where he acted as VP R&D, involved in many aspects of company strategy. The company has grown into a world leader in broadband wireless communication with over 300 employees, and taken public in NASDAQ in 1999 (FLRE). Subsequently it merged with Breezcom Ltd. and became Alvarion (ALVR).
Amir says he now wants to take some time out and add to his education with a masters degree in business. While ISEMI is proud of the practical, hands-on experience it offers its students, interestingly enough many who register for the MEI course are seeking to back up their existing practical experience with theoretical knowledge, and Amir is clearly in this category. He will doubtless have a great deal to contribute to his sessions at ISEMI.
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Tema T. Best
US-born Tema Best took a BA in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Columbia University in New York City, after specializing in math and science at high school. During her BA studies, she spent a year on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Overseas Student program, perfecting her Hebrew. In addition, Tema is fluent in Spanish, and she added French to her list of languages during a year spent working as assistant to the director of the Brussels branch of a tour company. Tema's professional experience includes working as an administrative assistant in a law office, followed by two years as assistant to the director of the Programs Development Department at Yad Vashem- the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. In this capacity she was involved in all aspects of developing educational programs and presentations.
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Tema is now assistant to the President and CEO of Empowerment Through Electronics Ltd., an Israeli SME in the field of ICT, which seeks to market its know-how. Her close involvement with the search for suitable international forums has made her aware of the importance of proper business expertise, and this is what has brought her to ISEMI. Tema is thus expecting a double dividend from the MEI course - for her company, which she can help to grow, and for herself, to face "the challenges of the fast-paced business world". In return, Tema will offer ISEMI her experience of various forms of entrepreneurship in the US, Europe and Israel.
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Dr. Ron Marc Babecoff
Ron Marc Babecoff did not immediately consider becoming a business entrepreneur. Although he grew up in Israel, Ron returned to his native Belgium to qualify as a veterinarian, but by the time he returned to this country, he had already decided not to work in a veterinary clinic.
His first employment was as a medical representative of a leading pharmaceutical company. After a year, he moved to the export department of another pharmaceutical company, sure that his knowledge of European languages and mentality would be an important asset. As Export Area Manager, Ron learned a great deal about marketing development and had considerable autonomy, but he was still aspiring to become his own boss. Eventually, he teamed up with a partner and set up a copy service, with stores in Tel Aviv and Herzliya. Copy 2000 offered customers digital color printing and graphic design, and also imported and commercialized complementary products. After three years, Ron became aware of lacking a challenge and interest, and sold his share.
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The experience was largely important to Ron for what he learned about how not to run a business, and led him to the conclusion that he needed to acquire a more professional approach.
Ron served as a Marketing Manager for a leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, where he was able to initiate and develop his own projects, but he did not abandon his dream of founding and leading a company offering innovative biotechnology products to improve people's lives. His combination of medical knowledge and business experience, together with his inner drive and ISEMI's finishing touch assisted him in establishing "Biondwax" which was subsequently taken public on TASE.
Eyal Benjamin
Eyal Benjamin is yet another natural entrepreneur. He has founded two companies, Kito Marcom, Ltd, a technological education company, and Freenet Communications, Ltd., an ISP. Eyal also served as CEO for both companies. After filling the position of VP of Markeing and Business Development for Venture Capital Fund, Eyal moved on to establish a new software start-up.
Eyal graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in Engineering, and has also completed one year of MBA studies at Bar-Ilan. Eyal expects to formulate the large amount of knowledge and experience he has acquired to an ordered methodology at ISEMI. Furthermore, he would like to "fill in the gaps" of his knowledge in regards to the creation and management of new ventures. He feels that ISEMI would be an ideal environment to achieve both goals, while still pursuing his career.
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Eyal thought, when his first start-up "crashed" that he would never do something on his own again. He soon discovered, however, that "once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur," and has been searching for ways to continue to create new ventures, which happened sooner than he thought.
Eyal is the perfect example of the ideal ISEMI entrepreneur; a new venture creator, who has gone through the good times and the bad, and is now ready to learn more, so he can do more. He feels that his "creative thinking" is his greatest hobby, an example of creating a career out of what you love. Eyal is looking to create the methodology to select the good ideas out of the ideas that pop into his head constantly.
Eyal feels that he can contribute a great amount of knowledge and experience to his fellow students, while also hoping that he can learn a great deal from them. His ultimate goal is to found and become CEO of a start-up company, and then take it public. We wish Eyal all the best, and are confident that ISEMI can help him achieve his dreams.
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