

20MinuteLeaders
Michael Matias
20MinuteLeaders features the world's prominent leaders for short conversations about their journeys and insights.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 1, 2020 • 25min
Ep93: David Demarest | Stanford GSB Professor, Prev. White House senior staff
David is a Stanford Business School Professor and has held numerous executive positions in communications and strategy. He was an assistant to President George H. W. Bush and member of the White House senior staff, was head of communications at Bank of America, head of brand management at Visa and most recently Stanford’s senior public affairs official.

Sep 1, 2020 • 25min
Ep94: Cindy Padnos | Founder & Managing Partner at Illuminate Ventures
Cindy is the founder and Managing Partner of Illuminate Ventures, a seed stage firm investing exclusively in Enterprise/B2B software startups. Previously, she was founder/CEO of SaaS startup Vivant (now part of Oracle), CEO of Acumen and VP marketing at Scopus (IPO then acquired by Siebel). Cindy has been recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Tech (Fast Company), Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley (New York Times) and dubbed ”Queen B2B” (VentureBeat).

Sep 1, 2020 • 23min
Ep92: Gil Ben Artzy | Founding Partner of UpWest
Gil is the Founding Partner of UpWest, the only Seed fund that's purposefully designed to help Israeli startups break into the US market. UpWest was the first investor in "unicorn" SentinelOne and its portfolio companies have raised well over $1B in follow-on funding from top US VCs. Previously, Gil was part of the Corporate Development group at Yahoo! and served as a consultant advising Fortune 500 companies for the Boston Consulting Group in New York.

Aug 31, 2020 • 27min
Ep86: Assaf Wand | CEO and Co-Founder at Hippo
Assaf is the CEO and co-founder of insurtech startup Hippo, a company that is reimagining home insurance through the lens of homeowners - more comprehensive coverage at up to 25% less than competitors. Previously he founded Sabi (acquired), was a consultant with McKinsey & Company and invested with Intel Capital. Assaf holds an MBA from University of Chicago and a BA in finance and LLB in law from IDC Herzliya.

Aug 31, 2020 • 22min
Ep89: Irina Meyer | Managing Director of Sils Capital Emmy Award Winner
Irina is a director, adviser and often majority stake investor in the fund's portfolio companies. Fluent in 6 languages, Irina is working with ventures in Switzerland, Israel, US and China. Irina's core expertise is in development and promotion of new technologies in digital media and interactive entertainment. She is an active member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Emmys Foundation. Irina is a recipient of the 2011 Emmy for the Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Media

Aug 31, 2020 • 21min
Ep88: Tomer Cohen | Co-Founder of Tech2Peace
Tomer Cohen is a social entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of Tech2Peace, the winner of the presidential Israeli Hope award. Tech2Peace brings together young Arabs and Jews from Israel and the Palestinian territories for intensive seminars that focus on peacemaking, entrepreneurship, and technological training, while their partners include Google, MIT (MISTI), Microsoft, etc.

Aug 31, 2020 • 21min
Ep90: Isaac Applbaum | Co-Founder of MizMaa Ventures, Prev a Senior Vice President at Bank of America
Isaac “Yitz” Applbaum is a co-founder of MizMaa Ventures, a $200M fund which invests in Israeli startup companies. He is an advisor to EIGHT VC Partners and Owl Ventures, and is on the advisory board of Vintage Investment Partners. Previously Yitz was the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Concorde Solutions Inc., which he sold to Bank of America where he held an SVP position. Applbaum was a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Aug 31, 2020 • 23min
Ep87: Shuli Gilutz | UX Researcher at Children's Technology
Shuli Gilutz, Ph.D. specializes in UX research, assessment, and design of interactive products for children. She works in industry and academia, teaching, advising, and conducting research, as well as a strategic consultant for the development and design of children's digital experiences. Dr. Gilutz is a global speaker about kids and digital media, age-appropriate UX, usability, play, and learning. She teaches at Tel-Aviv University, Shenkar’s Toy Invention program, and is a board member of the Designing for Children's Rights Association.

Aug 30, 2020 • 22min
Ep82: Yael Shemer | Co-Founder and CMO of TULU
Yael is the co-founder and CMO of TULU, a startup that aims to reshape the way people use and consume household products in buildings, neighborhoods, and offices. It is a smart rental room (accessible by an app), that leverages data analysis and smart maintenance. The company has 20 locations across Tel Aviv, New York, and New Jersey. Previously Yael was an environmental activist and promoted ventures in urban farming, food waste and renewable energy.

Aug 30, 2020 • 21min
Ep84: Michal Segalov | Director of Engineering at Google
Michal is a Director of Engineering at Google. She currently leads teams working on Natural Language Understanding, and previously worked on the Google Play team focusing on consumer features, Play Games APIs for developers, Google’s Networking infrastructure and YouTube. Michal co-initiated Mind The Gap, a program aimed at encouraging high school girls to select computer science and math as their high-school major. The program expanded globally and is now in its 8th year, with more than 50,000 participants to date.


