Helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies is both an art and a science, a process that includes offering support and collaboration and delivering refined feedback about management strategies, operational challenges and market trends. When evaluating investments in start-ups, I intuitively look for a set of key ingredients, such as great management, a growing market, innovative technology and a genuine and strong drive for success by the entrepreneurs. While I try to look for such "success components", over the years my investment philosophy increasingly emphasizes the human aspects: Great managers know how to deal with changing markets; they know how to overcome competition; they know who to hire and so on. I would venture to say that a company's success (as well as failure) can almost always be attributed to its management.
I joined the Walden Group in San Francisco in 1992 and co-founded Walden Israel in 1993. I made my first investment in January 1994 in Ornet, a communications company that later was acquired by Siemens. My relationship with Walden actually began in the late 80's, when we met under very different circumstances to discuss a potential investment. I was an entrepreneur looking for capital for a start-up called CI Systems.
I spent approximately six years with CI Systems, an Israeli military electro-optics company that started out of the Technion Physics department. I relocated to the US to start and manage the company's North American operations, and as such was involved in all aspects of running a start-up, including generating revenues from major aerospace corporations, raising equity funds, hiring a team and experiencing the challenges of a rapidly growing organization that has one foot in the US and another foot in Israel.
Prior to joining CI, I had managed my first entrepreneurial venture, a small management consulting company for Israeli technology start-ups. Prior to that I spent seven years with the Israeli government: first, as a team member at the Budget Department at Ministry of Finance and second, as representative of the Israel Investment Authority in New York.
I have degrees in Economics and a Master's in Business Administration from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1980. My master's thesis in the MBA program was titled "Key Ingredients for the Establishment of Venture Capital Industry in Israel." At that time the term "venture capital" was hardly known in Israel. Currently there are more than 50 venture firms in Israel managing more $5 billion. I am pleased that Walden Israel is a player in this thriving market.
If you are entrepreneurial and believe you can bring about a change, please contact us. I look forward to being able to form a partnership.
Executive Assistant:
Karen Cohen (karen@walden.co.il)
Helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies is both an art and a science, a process that includes offering support and collaboration and delivering refined feedback about management strategies, operational challenges and market trends. When evaluating investments in start-ups, I intuitively look for a set of key ingredients, such as great management, a growing market, innovative technology and a genuine and strong drive for success by the entrepreneurs. While I try to look for such "success components", over the years my investment philosophy increasingly emphasizes the human aspects: Great managers know how to deal with changing markets; they know how to overcome competition; they know who to hire and so on. I would venture to say that a company's success (as well as failure) can almost always be attributed to its management.
