20MinuteLeaders

Sonwabise Mzinyathi started her career in diplomacy and was posted as a Diplomat for South Africa in New Delhi, India. She left diplomacy to join corporate and has worked for PR agencies, tech and FinTech companies including TBWA’s Magna Carta, Cisco, and Refinitiv - a London Stock Exchange Business. Currently, she is in the NGO space working for global advocacy NGO, Global Citizen. She also serves on several Boards and Committees including the SA Women in ICT Forum, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment ICT Sector Council and the Cisco Charitable Foundation Trust and owns several companies. Her passion is using technology to address social ills.

Consul General of Israel to the Pacific North-West, Mr Shlomi Kofman is a 25 years career diplomat with vast experience in diplomacy, tech relations, and public policy. Prior to his posting in San Francisco, Consul General Kofman served as served Policy Advisor to the Deputy Foreign Ministers, as Israel’s Deputy Consul General in New York City, Chief of Staff to Ambassadors in Washington D.C., Deputy Ambassador in Thailand, and Deputy Consul General in Shanghai.

Ronen is a serial entrepreneur and a skilled manager with a track record of success across various industries. Prior to founding MySize, he established and led startups in the medical devices and communication sectors. Among his other endeavors, Ronen founded Malers, a company that has grown to be a leader in the global security solutions market and provides some of the most advanced technological solutions for integrated communication infrastructures, security, and control systems. Prior to that, he held several senior marketing, sales management, and professional services positions in a variety of international high-tech companies. Ronen graduated from Middlesex University in London with a B.sc in IT and Business Information Systems.

Credit24 is a Fintech company, which aims to create a One-Stop-Shop for the online lending industry. The company has developed a turnkey solution, which allows fully automated underwriting, operation, and collection, alongside KYC and a sales\retention platform. The company uses a proprietary solution that allows partnerships with various companies, from insurance companies to retail giants to offer loans, credit lines, or POS payments, without the need to develop anything on their end nor setting up a call center. The company was established in 2016 by Eran Horowitz, Asaf Iofe, and Ziv Rossbach. 

Elnor is the CEO and Co-Founder of the credit card company Jasper, formerly known as CreditStacks. Previously, Elnor was Co-Founder and CEO of mobile advertising platform Pingjam and VP of New Growth Platforms at LG Electronics. Elnor holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a Bachelor’s degree in Law from the Academic College of Law in Tel Aviv.

Melissa is a speaker, moderator, and advocate for Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace and helps to empower women through connecting them to various programs, events, and opportunities - created to give access to investors, mentors, networking, quality education, or job opportunities.

Miki Shifman is the CTO and co-founder of Cylus, which provides cybersecurity solutions for the rail industry. Miki is a veteran leader in the development of complex cyber security projects, with over ten years of experience in software engineering, research, and management. Prior to co-founding Cylus, Miki served as an R&D leader in the Cyber R&D Division of the Israel Defense Force’s Elite Technological Unit. He led teams awarded the Israel Defense Prize for exceptional technological breakthroughs and received high military honors for extraordinary achievement and exceptional contributions to national security. Miki has been recognized as an expert for Smart Mobility and Cyber Security by the World Economic Forum and he was featured on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list of 2020.

Aviv is a Staff Data Scientist at Intuit, previously a Lead Data Scientist at PayPal. She specializes in fraud prevention and cybersecurity, and in the past worked at the Prime Minister’s Office in the Cyber Security field, focusing on protocol analysis. Aviv graduated from Tel Aviv University with a double BSc in Computer Science and Life Science, while specializing in Bioinformatics.

John Rossman is the author of The Amazon Way book series, a former Amazon leader and Managing Partner at Rossman Partners. John is an expert leveraging the Amazon leadership principles to help others innovate, compete and win in the digital era. John was an executive at Amazon.com where he played a key role in launching the Amazon marketplace business as the Director of Merchant Integration and went on to have responsibilities for the enterprise business at Amazon.

Omri Lavie is a serial entrepreneur and an Angel investor. He co-founded NSO Group and is the co-founder and CEO of Orchestra Group, a holistic cybersecurity platform for proactive cyber defense. Omri founded several technology companies in various fields, specializing in Enterprise SW, Telecom, Cyber Intelligence & Cyber Security. He is also the co-founder at Founders Group, a private investment firm that invests in early-stage startups. He is an active philanthropist continuously supporting numerous non-profits in education, cancer wellness, the elderly, and child care.