The Israel Excel Fellowship — and Life — is All About the People
By Yaniv Sadka, 2018 Excel Fellow
This past summer is one I wish I could rewind. Although my time in Israel was lacking in REM cycles, it was filled with tremendous personal and professional growth.
Out of over 2,500 applicants, I was lucky to have been one of the 54 North American students selected to join Excel, a 10-week summer internship and leadership immersion program in Tel Aviv, followed by a lifelong fellowship. Like a personal accelerator, Excel gives startup Jewish leaders the tools they need to grow into successful professionals. My weeks on Excel were packed with the rush of helping a young digital microscopy startup grow by day, stimulating business and leadership lectures by evening, and making lifelong friends by night.
Since saying goodbye to my Excel cohort, I’ve reflected on my summer experience daily. Mostly, I’ve tried to understand what makes Excel so special and why it is such an impactful experience. As memory after memory from the summer replays in my head, I’ve noticed a very coherent theme start to emerge: Excel, and life as a whole, is all about the people.
Here are some of the people who made my Excel experience so memorable.
My Mentor: Asher Fink
Entering the summer, I was nervous for my internship to begin. All I could find on Scopio Labs was that it was a digital microscopy start-up in Tel Aviv that raised a $7M series A. The company was in stealth mode, so I couldn’t access their website, and despite being a biomedical engineering major, I knew little about microscopy. Unbeknownst to me, I’d be interning at a cutting-edge startup alongside some of the brightest minds — esteemed physicists, computer scientists, engineers, and business developers — the world has to offer.
At Scopio I worked as a Business Development Intern under Asher Fink, my professional mentor and the VP of Business Development. Asher is an ex-US Army sniper who worked in innovation consulting before joining Scopio three years ago. Over the course of our summer together, we developed and began to implement the beta program business plan in order to validate product market fit. Asher helped me realize tremendous professional growth by trusting me with significant business development projects like strategizing the global deployment of beta microscopes, designing the sales outreach strategy, and managing the contents and design of specification documents for potential customers. Asher also integrated me into C-suite business development meetings where he valued my input on high-level business strategy decisions like those about pricing models.
The experience where I grew the most was when Asher afforded me the opportunity to present the completed business plan to the entire company, including the CEO and CTO, solo. The company is comprised mostly of highly technical individuals who put their wholehearted trust in the business development team to move the company forward, so I felt the pressure to make sure they understood the business’ direction. The experience reiterated the importance of understanding your audience, conveying ideas concisely and effectively, and trusting your preparation.
I’m thankful to Asher for welcoming me to Scopio with open arms and exemplifying the work-ethic necessary to make a startup successful. I was fortunate to be a part of Scopio’s story, even if just for a short time, and look forward to staying connected with Asher and the company.
My internship made it abundantly clear why investors from all over the world choose to invest in Israel: the country develops highly technical, proprietary, and disruptive innovations — a recipe for a successful investment. Israel has turned its disadvantage of being on a metaphorical island with few natural resources into its biggest strength by understanding that they must invest in innovation and be global entrepreneurs on day one.
Grade-A Lecturers
This summer our cohort was fortunate to learn from industry leaders in fields ranging from Venture Capital and Private Equity to Politics to Personal Growth. We heard from the likes of Gil Shwed, co-founder and CEO of Checkpoint, the global leader in cybersecurity, and Yuval Cohen, the Founding and Managing Partner of Fortissimo Capital, the private equity firm that purchased struggling SodaStream in 2007, turned the company around, and took them to IPO in 2010. Needless to say, SodaStream was just bought by PepsiCo for $3.2B.
One lecturer who was particularly thought-provoking was Dr. Zohar Raviv, Birthright Israel’s VP of Education. Dr. Raviv highlighted that the disparity between knowledge and opinion is growing, despite our unprecedented access to information. As he put it, in today’s world there is no lack of content, but often a lack of context. Dr. Raviv challenged us to dive into the depths of nuance and complexity to build well-informed platforms off-of which to form intelligent opinions and make wise choices. If we want to be respected as leaders, he explained, we must be intellectually honest with ourselves, recognize cognitive dissonance, and not be afraid to change our positions as new content emerges or context changes.
Our cohort was lucky to have heard from so many remarkable individuals who engaged us with critical thought or shared their professional stories and tips. The wisdom they imparted on us was invaluable, and we have Excel leadership to thank for bringing them to us.
Lifelong Friends
Excel is a highly competitive program, and as such, many of the members that build up the North American cohort are high-achievers from elite universities like Harvard, Stanford, and Penn. Similarly, the Israeli peers we were paired with come from the Israeli Defense Force’s most elite military units like 8200 and Talpiot. Though their credentials are impressive, who they are as people is why they were chosen to be on Excel and why I’m so happy that they’re some of my new best friends.
From Knoxville to Los Angeles, Mexico City to New York, Excel introduced me to some of the most multi-dimensional individuals I’ve ever met. What struck me immediately was that skipping the small talk was the norm. I first realized this when just days into the program a group of us wound up discussing our philosophies on happiness and success until 3AM. That was proceeded in the coming weeks by unexpected bus ride debates on capitalism vs. socialism, conversations about venture capital and startups, and hours-long discussions on personal values. Each member of the cohort brought a different perspective to the table and challenged me cognitively, teaching me that I have something to learn from everybody.
In addition to being career-driven and intelligent, the North Americans and Israelis were just fun and happy people to be around. Weekends in Tel Aviv were priceless; life doesn’t get much better than eating bowls of hummus with your best friends then heading to Gordon Beach to soak in the sunshine and play matkot barefoot in the sand. Even though our cohort is now spread out across the country and the globe, the digital age has made it relatively easy to stay connected. For example, we FaceTime frequently to talk about future career goals or interesting startups, to ask for heartbreak advice, and to just say hello. Some of us have also created a fantasy football league together so that we can continue to make fun of one another — a sign of true friends. The bottom line is that the friends you make on Excel aren’t like most: you don’t add them on Facebook and watch their lives through pictures, you’re in the pictures.
“If you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together.” That was the proverb that Assaf Rappaport, GM of Microsoft Israel R&D, relayed to our Excel cohort when asked about the keys to his professional success.
Those who surround us influence all aspects of our lives, from our emotions to our professional growth. Excel changed my life not through an internship, but by surrounding me with a team of unbelievable people. I know I speak for every member of the 2018 cohort when I say thank you to those who fund and organize Excel and to those who helped and will continue to help us grow. You made our experience in Israel one we won’t forget and changed our lives for the better. We look forward to paying it forward.
