Program Leadership and Faculty

  • Prof. Yair Tauman

    Academic Director


    Prof. Yair Tauman is a leading professor of economics at Stony Brook University and dean of the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship at Reichman University, where he also serves as academic director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program (since 2009). Professor Tauman has been the director of the Stony Brook University Game Theory Center for the last 20 years. He served as the dean of the Arison School of Business at Reichman University ( 2010-2011), professor at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University from 1980-1987), the Economics Department at Ohio State University (1987-1990) and Tel Aviv University for 25 years (1983-2008). Recently, he was elected president of the Israeli chapter of the Game Theory Society.

  • Liat Aaronson

    Chairperson


    Liat Aaronson is the Chairperson of the program. Today, she is also a co-founder and Managing Director at Horizen Labs Ventures, a web3 advisory and venture studio that split off of Horizen Labs, the company she co-founded in 2019 and served as its COO. Before that, she was the COO of Selina, a high growth start-up in the hospitality space. Before that, she was a Partner at Marker LLC, a leading Israel-New York based venture capital firm, where she continues to oversee their follow-on annex fund. She holds a B.A. in economics (cum laude) from the University of California at Berkeley, an LL.B. and an MBA from Tel Aviv University, and an LL.M. from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (cum laude). She attained practical experience in M&A at Naschitz, Brandes, Amir & Co. Liat is a board member at Wristcam, Layer3 Labs and the Israel Democracy Institute, where she also serves on the finance committee. She is a member of the Friends of Reichman University’s advisory board and on the advisory boards of: WiSe, Weizman Institute’s entrepreneurship program and Scola, the 81 Unit entrepreneurship program, the Sheba School of Entrepreneurship program and the venture creation program at Innov8 in Nigeria. She is a Kauffman Fellow, class 22.

  • Ori Schnitzer

    Executive Director


    Ori Schnitzer is the Executive Director of the program, and a Zell program graduate himself. For over 15 years, he has been working with and for startups, as a founder, executive and advisor, covering a broad range of sectors and geographies. Until 2020 he was based in East Asia, where he launched operations for Israeli and American companies, mainly in the fields of energy management and environmental services. Since returning to Israel he has been helping emerging and growth-stage companies to assess, plan for and execute international expansion strategies, as a consultant. Ori holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Reichman University (Cum Laude), and an Executive MBA from CEIBS - China Europe International Business School (Outstanding Graduate Award).

  • Liraz Sharabani

    Director of Personal Development


    Liraz Sharabani is the program's personal development director, a Zell 7 graduate herself, and active at the Zell alumni board in the last ten years. Liraz is a seasoned professional with varied experience in the Israeli innovation ecosystem across multiple sectors. Before that, she was the Head of Academy at Shookit. In 2014 she founded Boost, a venture creation development and consulting firm. Liraz's expertise lies in developing entrepreneurial programs and translating customer's needs into a strategic vision and operating structure. During five years with Boost, she developed and managed over 30 venture creation programs in Israel and abroad, collaborating with the Zell network and the Israeli startups' ecosystem. Liraz holds an EMBA from The Hebrew University with practical experience in "Startup Investing" and a B.A. from Reichman University.

  • Tali Pais

    Program Operations Coordinator


    Tali Pais is the Program Operations Coordinator. Tali is an event producer with more than 10 years of experience in the national and international events industry, focusing on Hi-Tech and innovation. Her company, "Tali Pais Events" specializes in creating bespoke experience events. Tali holds BA in business and finance from Reichman University.

  • Dana Barda

    Head of Dean's Office and Operations Manager


    Dana Barda is the Head of Dean's Office and Operations Manager at the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship, and the Executive Assistant to the Zell Entrepreneurship Program. She has been part of the Zell staff since 2012 and supports the students, faculty, alumni and mentors community. She holds a BA degree from Bar-Ilan University, majoring in honors in Social Studies.

  • Dr. Eyal Maoz


    Dr. Eyal Maoz is the Director of the MBA programs at the School of Business at Ono Academic College. He has a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, and both a B.A. and MBA from Tel Aviv University. Eyal is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

  • Dr. Ayal Shenhav, Adv.


    Dr. Ayal Shenhav, Adv. is the Founder and Senior Partner at Shenhav & Co., Law Offices, a leading Tel Aviv law firm that deals with high-tech, private equity, taxation and project finance. Ayal has earned both a Doctorate of Juridical Science (JSD) and an LL.M. in Taxation from the New York University School of Law, and an LL.B. (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University. For several years, he practiced law at Davis Polk and Wardwell LLP in New York. Dr. Shenhav also served as Vice Dean of the Radzyner School of Law at Reichman University.

  • Dr. Amir Kfir


    Dr. Amir Kfir is an international change leader and corporate organizational therapist, regularly active in more than 20 countries. He has run many organizational change processes dedicated to transforming culture and organizational positioning towards the future. Amir has also run many forum training programs, management retreats and team building seminars. Amir is the creator of the Nonflict Conflict Resolution methodology facilitating conflict resolution forums for YPO and WPO as well as for corporations all over the world.

  • Eden Shochat


    Eden is an entrepreneur turned early-stage investor at Aleph, a venture capital fund with $850M under management. Aleph focuses on partnering with great Israeli entrepreneurs to build large, meaningful companies and impactful global brands. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in over 60 companies (not all announced) including Lemonade, Melio, Windward, Simply (formerly JoyTunes), NextSilicon, Honeybook and Bringg.

    Prior to Aleph, Eden was a General Partner at Genesis Partners, where he became the youngest partner at a venture capital firm in Israel and led its investments in Riskified, Monday.com and JoyTunes. A serial entrepreneur, Eden also co-founded face.com, the global leader in massive, web-scale face recognition in social networks, which was acquired by Facebook in 2012. He was also co-founder and CTO of Aternity, later acquired by Riverbed (Nasdaq: RVBD), where he led the development of its dominant user experience monitoring platform. Passionate about giving back, Eden founded The Junction, Israel’s leading pre-seed program for startups, co-founded the annual Geekcon conference to encourage creativity and innovation, and teaches entrepreneurship at the IDC (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya) Zell Entrepreneurship Program. Eden also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Bankinter Innovation Foundation and as a board member of Ramot, the Business Engagement Center at Tel Aviv University.

  • Yoni Cheifetz


    Yoni Cheifetz is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners (www.lsvp.com) since 2006. LSVP is one of the world's leading global VCs with over $10B under management and a mission to serve the world's most extraordinary entrepreneurs who are building tomorrow's companies today. Prior to LSVP Yoni was a partner at Star Ventures for 3 years. Yoni's investments include: Solaredge (Nasdq: SEDG), Outbrain, Cato Networks, Bluevine, Personetics, At-Bay, Alooma (AQcq. by Google), Epsagon, Teads (acq. by Altis), Theranica, Sheer Networks (acq. by Cisco), AeroScout (acq. by Stanley) and others. Before becoming a VC, Yoni spent 16 years as an entrepreneur and angel investor founding, managing and investing in several software companies including: Demantra (acq. by Oracle), Agentics (acq. by Mercado), Earnix and Traiana (acq. by ICAP).

  • Ariel Anati


    Mr. Ariel Anati is a financial professional in the fields of corporate finance, valuation, strategy and research. He is the Head of Operations at AdlerInlight, an innovation services firm dedicated to multinational industrial companies. In addition, he is a finance lecturer at the Reichman University there he teaches the courses "Financial Thinking for Startups" & “Quantitative Methods in Finance”. He holds an M.A. in Financial Economics from Reichman University, M.A. in Law Studies from Bar-Ilan University and a B.A. in Psychology & Communication from the Israel Open University.