IVN welcomes new member Tali Alon - Based at UBS's Sand-Hill Road office, Tali focuses on Individuals, Corporations and Corporate Executives. Prior to joining UBS in 2002, Tali established her experience in investments management at several prestigious Wall Street firms - most recently with Wasserstein Parella Asset Management Co. and Hyperion Partners. Tali is highly involved in the Israeli and Jewish communities in the Silicon Valley. Tali is a member of the Peninsula Professional Subcommittee of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund and also the committee chair of the Executive Development Series program with the California Israel Chamber of Commerce (CICC).
IVN welcomes back members Neill and Linda Brownstein, who co-founded Footprint Ventures, a Bangalore based, early stage technology venture fund. Neill is also a co-
founder of Bessemer Venture Partners and was the founder of the Novak-Biddle Venture Fund. He has extensive international business experience in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Israel. Linda is a co-founder of Hellman Jordan, Partner of Montgomery Securities, and was previously SVP of the Education Division for Atari, Inc. Linda is also the Chair of the Israel & Overseas Committee of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco.
Yehudah Cohn, a new member of the IVN Executive Board as of May 2006, is co-
Chair of the Active Citizenship Strategic Initiative and a member of the Strategic Advisory Board. Born and raised in London, he now splits his time between New York and Israel. Yehudah currently has business interests in a variety of investments, and in a prior career was a trader of physical commodities. He is completing a doctorate at the University of Oxford in Jewish Studies.
IVN welcomes new member Mark Chess. Mark is a Principal with The Infinity Venture Capital Fund. Prior to Infinity, Mark was the Director of International Relations at Partners500 until 2001. Earlier in his career, while at Angelou Economic Advisors, he was involved with the regional economic impact of semiconductor fabrication plants. Mark has also held positions at MATI High-Tech Sterling Technologies and HLS. Within the non-profit sector, Mark founded and manages two organizations: LEG-UP, a microfinance fund lending capital to microenterprises employing the poor; and Yesh Shabbat, a fund that provides food to families living in poverty.
IVN welcomes corporate member Commtouch. Commtouch® Software Ltd. (NASDAQ: CTCH) was founded in 1991, and is dedicated to protecting the integrity of the world's most widespread form of communication, e-mail. With fifteen years of expertise in the
development of email software, Commtouch provides spam and Zero-Hour™ virus outbreak protection for 35 million users in over 130 countries. Commtouch technologies have been licensed by 40 partners, including security and anti-virus vendors, managed service providers and messaging security providers.
IVN Member Bobby Lent was honored this May by the Bay Area Jewish community for his founding of the Kehillah Jewish high school. IVN was a proud co-sponsor of the event. Bobby is a lead contributor to IsraCorps and recently IVN joined IVN's Strategic Advisory Board (SAB). Bobby is the Managing Partner of Hillsven LLC, a private venture
investment group located in the Silicon Valley. Hillsven LLC invests and plays an active role in innovative high tech firms primarily in Israel and the US. Bobby is a major investor and Chairman of Traiana, Inc., an early stage enterprise software company. that is headquartered in New York and has core R&D located in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Isabel Maxwell, Chair of the Social Entrepreneur Fellowship Program and IVN Voting Member, represented IVN and the SE initiative for the third year at the Skoll World
Forum on Social Entrepreneuring at Oxford university, England. She presented the initiative's progress in the Orange Program and held key meetings regarding future partnership in Israel with Bill Drayton of Ashkoa, the pioneering organization on Social Entrepreneurship and with Sally Osberg, CEO of the Skoll Foundation.
Aliza and Raanan Peleg have recently joined IVN. Aliza is Manging Director of SAP Labs US, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Aliza joined SAP in March 2001 after SAP
acquired TopTier Software, where she was General Manager of TopTier Israel for five years. Prior to TopTier, Aliza was Director of Business Development at Scitex Corporation and Marketing Manager at Apple Computer.
Dr. Mordechai (Modi) Segal, was recently elected as an IVN Executive Board Member , is CEO of Oneneis company. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. Modi is a businessman active in the high-tech industry and a philanthropist. He was a Senior Executive of Texas Instruments and one of the founders of Libit Corporation.
IVN Member Rony Zarom, founder and chairman of Unistream, addressed a United Nations' forum, which included UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and HRH, The Prince of
Wales, together with other international business leaders, as he reported on the challenge of empowering Israeli youth from resource-scarce communities. His remarks focused on the natural leadership potential of these youth and the cultivation of their business skills. The ultimate goal: to encourage them to move beyond the cycle of poverty and through the gateway to Israel's technologically advanced society.