Hetz
Data Program
Browse industry insights from our Data Advisors below.
Aviv Sinai has been Senior Vice President of Research & Development for Taboola since July 2018. He previously served in various capacities at Taboola from 2007, including as its Vice President of Research and Development between 2012 and 2018. Prior to joining Taboola in 2007, he served in the Israel Defense Forces for 6 years as a software team leader in an elite technological unit. Mr. Sinai earned a B.S. degree cum laude in Computer Science from Bar Ilan University and a M.Sc. cum laude in Computer Science from Reichman University (the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya).
"It’s all about the culture."
Vandana has over 15 years of experience in Product, Technology, and Data across the Payments & Healthcare industries. At Mastercard, where she has worked for more than a decade, she excels in delivering customer-centric solutions with a focus on data strategy, data management, governance, and ethical data & AI use. She is known for her analytical skills and effective stakeholder communications with product delivery. Based in Seattle, Washington, Vandana holds a B.Tech in Computer Engineering from India, and an MBA from the University of Washington, US. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her kid and practicing ceramics.
"Innovation thrives when we genuinely listen to the pain points of others. True leadership is about understanding and addressing these challenges with empathy and creativity."
Amit Mandelbaum is a Generative AI expert with over 15 years of experience in leadership roles across startups and established companies. His career includes positions as AI Lead at Imubit, Director of AI at NVIDIA, Co-founder and CTO of Everminds, and currently, AI Technical Lead at AI21 Labs. Amit provides consulting services to VCs, hedge funds, and tech companies in the AI space. He has also contributed to AI education, delivering courses and lectures in various academic settings.
As an angel investor, Amit supports emerging AI technologies. He holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Hebrew University. His contributions to the field include authoring seven academic papers and nine patents, reflecting his ongoing engagement with AI research and innovation.
People often say one thing and mean another, attentive listening is crucial when engaging with investors, customers, or employees.
"People often say one thing and mean another, attentive listening is crucial when engaging with investors, customers, or employees."
With over 15 years of experience, I have led dynamic teams in leveraging data to provide strategic insights and influence product strategies across prominent tech companies. My expertise spans the entire data lifecycle, from architecting loggers, designing data warehouses, to reporting insights. As a Data Engineering Manager at Meta, I have supported various foundational efforts, driven impactful projects from conception to delivery, led complete overhaul of logging process, supported multiple 0->1 products, leading to significant gains. Currently, I led the Videos Ecosystem team overseeing a fast-paced group of data engineers that owns KPI metrics and plays a crucial role in supporting strategic initiatives that drive the company's growth in the video domain. By providing comprehensive data insights and ensuring alignment with company priorities, the team significantly contributes to the overall success and competitiveness of Meta's video products.
"Get comfortable with the uncomfortable", it's the key to unlocking innovation and growth.
Ben has spent his career focused on helping companies develop end-to-end data solutions that are simple and maintainable. He has worked in various industries and companies including companies like Facebook as a data engineer. Using his broad experiences he has helped companies develop, improve modernize and migrate their data infrastructure. He has helped migrate companies off old ETL systems, find the right solutions such as Astronomer and Fivetran and improve companies data performance. Whether your company is a SaaS or Casino, Ben can help.
"Good design is easier to change than bad design - the pragmatic programmer."
Julia is an accomplished leader with well over a decade of experience in data-driven roles across prominent tech companies. As the VP of Data & Analytics at Carta, she led a transformative data strategy, enhancing self-service capabilities and fostering impactful Data Science collaborations. Her tenure at Square saw her establish and scale the Data Engineering function, modernizing the data stack and empowering over 4,000 users with self-service analytics tools. Julia also served as Director of Analytics at HotelTonight, driving predictive analytics initiatives, and a number of other mid to late stage startups in various data roles.
"Effective data teams thrive on variety of work and educational backgrounds. I admire those who are endlessly curious, always seeking to learn, and unafraid of tackling tough challenges."
Shira is the Vice President of Data Products & Data Science at Achieve, helping people get into a better financial future. She loves the intersection of Data and Product where data powers great products and experiences that utilize innovative technologies. In her 15+ years of experience, spanning across different industries and organizations and held multiple leadership roles at Yahoo, Realtor.com and Truecar. Shira has had repeated success in building successful teams and driving business outcomes, with proven results in developing best in class Products from initial concepts to millions of users across multiple platforms.
"Be resilient, don't be afraid to speak up and never stop dreaming."
June Dershewitz is an analytics leader with 25 years of experience as a practitioner and as a consultant for major brands. She has spent the past 8 years working in the Media & Entertainment division of Amazon - specifically Twitch and Amazon Music - where she has built and led teams of analysts, scientists, and data engineers. She holds nonprofit and academic board seats, and she is an angel investor in data startups. She lives with her family in San Francisco.
"Never underestimate the power of your genuine enthusiasm for the problem you're trying to solve."
As a preeminent Senior Data, Analytics, and AI thought leader, Vinay Reddy Ravoola has redefined the landscape of data utility over two groundbreaking decades. His leadership has been instrumental in assembling and steering powerhouse teams across Data Engineering, Data Science, and AI, setting new benchmarks for data products that significantly enhance Acquisition, Engagement, and Retention. At the forefront of Adobe's data & analytics for digital media and marketing, he pioneered the Data-Driven Operating Model, seamlessly weaving insights through the fabric of the business.
His expertise in navigating the nuances of the subscription model for both B2B and B2C segments is unmatched, adeptly embedding actionable insights into critical points of the customer journey to supercharge growth, personalization, and loyalty. Vinay is renowned for fostering an environment where innovation, empowerment, and empathy thrive, attracting and nurturing the industry's brightest minds.
Vinay's contributions have been pivotal in constructing a centralized Customer Data Platform, masterfully orchestrating customer journeys for unparalleled insights, and engineering data products that are the backbone of business functionality. His commitment to leveraging Data Science, AI, and ML has unlocked exponential growth opportunities, streamlined data integration post-M&A, and championed data democratization, all while maintaining the highest standards of governance and quality.
Vinay's journey in data, analytics, and AI over the past twenty years has positioned him as a leading figure in transforming data into a key strategic business value. His approach combines deep technical expertise with a keen business outlook, aiming to tackle complex global scale issues.
"Innovation thrives on curiosity, empathy, and the courage to transform challenges into opportunities. Lead by empowering others to envision and enact change."
As Principal Consultant at DAS42, Logan guides teams of data engineers, data scientists, and strategy consultants to help S&P 500 organizations better leverage their data resources while minimizing time to insight and action. Logan has worked with six large-cap companies in Healthcare, Media & Entertainment, and Telecom in order to modernize their data infrastructure and deploy predictive analytics at scale. Through a personal background in MLOps and distributed computing, Logan continues to guide clients through tool selection and infrastructure planning for initiatives focused on LLMs, custom data applications, and identity resolution.
"Most visits to the doctor don't end in specialized surgery, but rather with a prescription for a common drug. Plan your product or service accordingly."
Sriram Sirisinahal is a seasoned data analytics executive with over two decades of experience leading transformations across sectors like Financial Services, CPG, Digital Advertising, and Technology. As the Senior Director of Data at Unity, he drives innovation in creating and operating real-time 3D content. Sriram fosters a culture of data-driven decision-making, propelling organizational excellence through analytical insights. He is passionate about ensuring companies remain at the forefront of evolving data and analytics landscapes and reinforce their position as trailblazers in the dynamic digital sphere.
Companies that started off with a strong data based decision making culture have always successfully outperformed their competitors.
Gal holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Science from the Technion, specializing in Natural Language Processing. He has authored several papers in the NLP domain that were accepted at prestigious conferences. Gal is a seasoned software developer and natural language processing researcher, having kickstarted teams at Microsoft and led NLP research squads in various startups. Additionally, he is the founder and co-host of the LangTalks podcast, the most listened-to podcast in Hebrew about developing LLM-based applications. Gal is also the founder of Apriori.ai, a GenAI and NLP consulting company that assists startups in implementing GenAI tech to address their challenges. Gal previously served as the VP of R&D at Renovai, which develops GenAI chat solutions for lifestyle ecommerce companies.
"In my opinion the GenAI revolution only started and while the technology barrier will no longer serve as a big differentiator for startups the execution and finding a good use cases will."
James has more than 15 years experience building and leading analytics and operations teams, with an emphasis full-stack analytics ownership. He currently leads BizOps, RevOps, and Analytics functions at Mux, a developer platform that powers the internet's video infrastructure. Prior to Mux, James led BI and analytics teams at YouTube and Google. On his circuitous path to data and analytics, James learned the art of slideware as a strategy consultant and earned his CFA designation as an investment analyst.
"The last mile in data is still the hardest to get right. And just just like a pizza or a joke...if you don’t nail the delivery, it’s all for naught."
Over the last 20 years, Yoni has made data accessible to business stakeholders, serving as a product and analytics leader. His tenure at Google and Palantir, along with co-founding the data company Rupert, underscores his expertise. Currently, he advises companies that are developing data tools for business stakeholders and analytical teams. An adept builder and problem solver, Yoni thrives on addressing complex data challenges across various domains.
"Both Nirvana and Pink Floyd crafted masterpieces; yet in life, as in music, I favor Nirvana's simplicity over Pink Floyd's complexity."
Yogev is a ML/AI expert known for his adeptness at guiding initiatives from concept to large-scale execution, showcasing his capacity to lead diverse projects to success across various company sizes. His expertise encompasses data modeling, information retrieval, scoring systems, recommendation systems, and generative AI. Yogev possesses both technical knowledge and strategic insight and excels in steering multidisciplinary teams while fostering an environment of collaboration and innovation.
"Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion."
Guy is an experienced product leader, with over 15 years in tech, currently leading product at JFrog, an end-to-end MLOps platform powering ML & AI for leading companies worldwide. Guy loves navigating chaos, simplifying complex problems and workflows, and integrating technical knowledge with the love for people and products. Guy brings a diverse background spanning from FPGA in the IDF's elite cybersecurity Matzov unit, networking at Cisco, cybersecurity at Mercedes Benz, fintech startups, and ML & AI products.Guy has been passionate about generative AI and LLMs starting early 2021, and loves building products which leverage the power of AI in creative ways. Guy is fluent in 5 languages and holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Reichman University.
"Build products using Pareto principle: focus on the 20% that delivers 80% of the results. Aim for simplicity and blend ideas from diverse fields to create products that users love."
Dirk Beyer is a Technical & Business Leader and Analytics Architect with executive background and more than 25 years of experience of building teams and directing AI, ML and Data-driven Business Development for Marketing, Supply Chain, Identity Resolution, Payment Solutions, Risk and Fraud in both large companies and early startups. He has worked in Executive and Analytics Leadership roles at Doordash, Uber, Neustar, Marketshare, M-Factor, and Hewlett-Packard. He holds a Master’s degree in Education and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Leipzig University, Germany, and conducted academic research at University of Toronto.
"Data is an essential asset for any company. It needs to be constantly collected and protected. It only bears interest, though, if it is put to work."
Paul-Emil Iusztin isa senior ML & MLOps engineer with the mission of building large-scale AI systems with worldwide impact. He loves to see ML systems in production. and is also the co-founder of Decoding ML, an e-learning platform teaching production-ready ML through LinkedIn, Medium, their newsletter and hands-on courses. He loves building and creating, which is why his passion is at the intersection between engineering and content creation.
"To bring novel ML models into production, you must balance SWE and ML research."
An experienced R&D leader and architect. An extremely versatile engineer, with diverse experience in various fields: Image processing, distributed computing, hardware, software, back-end development, web scraping, internet protocols, cyber security, web development, service oriented architecture, big-data systems and practical ML and AI deployments and scale. Management experience includes leading multiple large R&D groups (dozens of engineers, Devops, data science, SRE), as well as multiple research and development projects, from design to implementation.
"The best way to inspire action in bright people is to present them with a tough challenge and let them find the solution."
Ziv is a creative leader of Analytics, who specializes in the analytical fields of Finance, Business, Consulting & Strategy. Ziv has over 12 years experience in analytical roles in the Israeli high-tech ecosystem, where he constantly thrives to lead analysts in large impact analytical projects and pushes to cultivate an analytics-as-a-product approach. Currently Ziv manages the GTM Data Analytics group at AppsFlyer GTM organization. The Data Analytics group consists of 10 analysts supporting all GTM departments from Strategy, Business, Sales, Revenues, Client Services, Marketing & Support. Ziv started as the first analyst at AppsFlyer's Global Client Services department, and helped hire, manage & grow the analytics teams from 1 to 8 analysts across 4 different continents. Ziv holds a BA in Economics (Cum Laude) & MA in Economics with thesis - both from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.His MA specialization was in Econometrics and high statistics, and his thesis was in the field of consumer decision making, behavioral economics & experimental economics.
"Salience Matters" [Ziv Ben Naim]
"More is lost by indecision than wrong decision." [Marcus Tullius Cicero]
Saar Golde is an experienced data science executive and Ph.D. economist. Saar has been serving as the Chief Data Scientist at Via Transportation for the past 8 years, tackling diverse challenges across data science, data engineering, reporting and related domians. Prior to Via, Saar established and grew Knowedgent’s data science practice, working mainly in healthcare, pharma, and financial services. Saar holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford, an M.Sc in Operations and Decision Sciences from Tel Aviv University, and a B.Sc. in Physics and Math from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Xinran is a Senior Data Engineer with over 7 years of industry experience in designing and developing data systems. Currently a member of the Personalization Data Engineering team at Netflix, she builds data applications to power ML algorithms and product innovation. Prior to Netflix, Xinran was a Data Engineer at Confluent and Target where she leveraged big data technologies to enable data-driven decision making in the marketing and membership space. She is also an active blog writer and the founder of Data Engineer Things, an online publication and community dedicated to data engineering.
"Only when the data engineering systems are future-proofed to consistently deliver qualitative data, data-driven business decisions can be made with confidence."
For the past 24 years, Yuval has been turning Big Data into business value, helping organization gain competitive advantage by using data driven insights. He is a passionate entrepreneur, specializing in turning ideas into successful products. He started his career as a software developer and moved into product and then entrepreneurship, holding an MBA from the IE business school in Madrid. For the past 12 years Yuval has been an entrepreneur. In 2016 he founded Market Beyond (a Hetz portfolio company), providing insights to e-commerce brands and retailers. In 2023, he sold the company to Bright Data (the third exit for Hetz) and is now focused on helping startups.
"Data is king, data-driven insights is queen. However too much data makes organization struggle to make sense. Turning insights into actions is the new emperor."
Stephen Blum is the CTO and co-founder of PubNub, a company that connects one billion devices and handles 25,000 terabytes of data every month. The edge messaging communication platform powers applications across industries with features like device control, on-demand delivery and collaborative tools. Stephen's approach led to over 60 granted patent claims, including an edge message bus written in C running on Kubernetes, showcasing innovation, scale and reliability in the field. Stephen has been instrumental in enabling PubNub's edge messaging solutions to thrive in a myriad of use cases including fleet management, multiplayer gaming, connected homes, telemedicine, and live audience engagement. With a background in CS and a passion for globally distributed systems, Stephen has lead architecting PubNub's globally distributed Edge Messaging Network that ensures low-latency data transfers worldwide.
"Top 10 apps in the App Store have built-in communication. This has become an expected product feature. PubNub APIs makes this seamless."
Yuda Borochov finds leadership to be his calling: "I'm passionate about data. I love what I do. I've been fortunate to lead teams that have a delivery track record of numerous massively large strategic initiatives from vision to implementations, in startups, global public and private companies, and Fortune-100 enterprises.I’m currently leading the Data organization in one of the world's largest esports and competitive gaming companies.I'm on a lifelong mission to study true leadership. It has yielded tight families. Also called teams."
"Leadership leads people, managers manage stuff. If we remember to have values around a heart-first and people-first core. If we put systems in play to support this mindset. Over time our Org's outcomes will surpass any immediate goal one single manager's perspective can conjure."
Gilad Lotan, Head of Data Science and Analytics at BuzzFeed Inc. spearheads a team developing cutting-edge analytics, insights, and data products used by thousands and experienced by hundreds of millions of content consumers worldwide. Prior to BuzzFeed, Gilad led Data Science at Betaworks, an NYC-based startup studio and seed-stage VC firm that launched services such as Bitly, Chartbeat, Giphy and SocialFlow. Earlier, Gilad contributed to data product development at Microsoft where his team integrated social data streams into a range of products. His work, particularly on propaganda and bias within algorithmic ranking systems, has been widely recognized in academic journals and publications.
"Organizations should stop seeing data as merely a source of information and begin to recognize its transformative potential in reshaping decision-making processes and driving innovative product development."
Recent Works:
Even This Data Guru Is Creeped Out By What Anonymous Location Data Reveals About Us
As the former Head of AI/ML Strategy at Snowflake, Ahmad leveraged his expertise in AI/ML to help customers optimize their workloads on Snowflake. Working closely with the Snowflake product team, he helped define the ML feature set within Snowflake based on customer feedback. Prior to joining Snowflake, Ahmad spent over 4 years at AWS where he focused on the AWS stack of ML services, and was involved in early proof of concepts for AWS SageMaker. Ahmad holds a Masters in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California.
"The one thing you have to earn in a customer interaction is trust. Everything else can come later. Listen, learn and acknowledge the gaps in your product or service as you pitch to your customers. Once, you have trust, the customers will wait for you to fill the gaps. Let the voice of the customer be a co-pilot as you drive your roadmap."
Amit Sethi is a strategic technology executive with over two decades of experience building and leading high-performing Data Engineering, Platform, and Data Science. Amit is passionate about leveraging data to drive business outcomes and provide a competitive advantage. His expertise covers: Development and management of data engineering pipelines and platforms at a petabyte scale; Development and execution of AI and data strategy for the company; Building cloud-scale data products and integrating with enterprise data sets; Modernizing Data Infrastructure (how data is instrumented, collected, stored, and insights are derived and shared with enterprise applications) through continuous evolution of processes, technologies, and adoption of SDLC principles; Building and retaining top talent, motivating and managing dispersed teams; Defining and executing of Data-driven operating environment that accelerated business outcomes (customer acquisition, conversion, and retention) and provided a competitive advantage; Migrations of large-scale on-prem big data platforms to the cloud (lift and shift, re-platform, and re-architecture strategies).
"Although numerous companies embarked on their journey nearly a decade ago, only a select few have successfully established and operated a data-driven operating model fueled by actionable insights. Those who have mastered this art have catapulted themselves ahead, leaving their competition in the dust."
Recent Works:
Podcast interview on The Next Big Question
Prasad is a seasoned analytics leader focused on managing innovative data/machine learning/artificial intelligence driven technology solutions to complex business problems. Prasad excels in setting big vision, executing with relentless intellectual curiosity and bringing the best out of people.
"It’s about ideas, execution and people. Dream big, execute relentlessly, treasure your relationships, bring the best out of everyone around you, and everything else follows."
Recent Works:
Interview with Institute of Product Leadership's AMA Series
Sumesh Kumar is a former Sales Operations and Analytics leader responsible for driving ARR and Revenue growth. He has a proven track record of optimizing sales processes, implementing revenue-generating initiatives, and managing high-performing sales strategy and analytics teams. Sumesh has a record of strong analytical skills and experience using data-driven and Generative AI techniques to disrupt traditional Sales models and decision making. He is passionate about leveraging technology and innovation to drive Sales strategy and P&L.
"Disrupting traditional sales models through AI and Generative AI."
Martin specializes in delivering effective solutions and enhancing user experience and service delivery. With expertise in code-complete design and development, enterprise architecture, deployment, data security, and compliance, he brings valuable process and building knowledge to the table. His track record of success includes directing cross-functional and multi-site international teams in agile scrum, along with Scaled Agile, environments and managing IT projects, capacity planning, and implementation with ease. Areas of Martin's expertise include: Framework and improved processes for continuous improvement; Global Cloud Solutions: IaaS, PaaS, DCaaS, SaaS, NSOC, SOC; Data Science at scale with Machine Learning, ModelOps, MLOps; Observability to Explainability: ITIM, APM, Metrics, Patterns, Actionable; Security: Prevention, Detection, Remediation, DevSecOps.
"Leadership lies in inspiring others to unlock their full potential, delivering more, fostering a collaborative environment where diverse perspectives flourish, and engaging continuous improvement and growth."
Recent Works:
The Future of AI and ML in the Software Development Industry & Much More
Aurimas is a seasoned data professional with over a decade experience in Data Science, Data/ML/MLOps Engineering fields. He is obsessed with building out data capabilities at scale and helping organisations implement their Data Driven visions. He is driven by the belief that a strong self service data and ML platform is key for organisations to be successful in scaling out their data efforts. To achieve it there is both a need of Cultural and Technical transformation. He also helps practitioners to level up in MLOps, data engineering, machine learning and related data fields by sharing his knowledge and experience in easy-to-understand, digestible way.
Demetrios Brinkmann is founder of the MLOps Community. He is an avid traveler who taught English as a second language to see the world and learn about new cultures. Brinkmann fell into the Machine Learning Operations world, and since, has interviewed the leading names around MLOps, Data Science, and Machine Learning. When he is not conducting interviews you can find him making stone stackings with his daughter in the woods or playing the ukulele by the campfire.
"Lots of talk about community these days but its hard to get right. Developers are quick to sniff out products with the wrong intentions who use community as a way to generate leads."
Recent Works:
Wendy has over 10 years of experience building data product teams through different stages of scale from 0 - 1 to 1 - n. Currently, Wendy is the Director of Engineering & Data for Core Optimize at Shopify. Wendy and her teams are focused on exploring how to better support user analytic workflows through building experiences and infrastructure foundations that help merchants understand and grow their business.
"Investing in foundations early will deliver exponential value down the road when you're ready to leverage a new scale of data maturity for your organization."
Recent Works:
On AI Ethics: Wendy Foster, Director Of Engineering And Data Science At Shopify
Sathish is a seasoned data executive with 22 years of experience in all facets of data lifecycle management who takes pride in connecting strategy to execution and promoting data-driven culture.
"When it comes to organizations, survival of the fittest is no longer true.. it will be the survival of the most nimble, innovative, data-driven & self-disruptive companies."
Erik is an analytics and business professional with over a decade of experience providing insights, building high performing teams, and leading data driven decision making throughout organizations. He is currently the Head of BI and Analytics at Hyperscience, where he was the first centralized BI and Analytics hire, responsible for building out the analytics capabilities and function at Hyperscience from the ground up. His team is accountable for driving data informed decision-making and maturing data literacy across the entire organization.
"I'm lazy. But it's the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn't like walking or carrying things." [Lech Walesa]
Recent Works:
