Idit Rubin, Executive Director, Birthright Israel Excel
Gidi Mark, International CEO, Birthright Israel
Yoram Tietz, Managing Partner, EY Israel; Chair Birthright Israel Excel
Tali Vogelstein, Summit co-chair, Excel Fellow 2016
Josh Fagel, Summit co-chair, Excel Fellow 2016
Adam Pope, Summit co-chair, Excel Fellow 2016
DON'T TAKE YES: Catapult Your Career & Life with Communication
Steve Herz, Talent Agent & Author of Don't Take Yes for an Answer: Using Authority, Warmth, and Energy to Get Exceptional Results
Moderated by Tamara Gutverg, Excel Fellow 2017
PIVOTING DURING A PANDEMIC: How to Use Social Media to Boost Your Business & Your Life
Jessica Abo, Journalist, Speaker, Consultant, Philanthropist
Moderated by Jordan Singer, Excel Fellow 2017
A JOURNEY TO THE MOON
Yonatan Winetraub, Co-founder of SpaceIL
Moderated by Charlie Melman, Excel Fellow 2015
Jessica is a sought-after thought leader, and bestselling author, who speaks to corporations, nonprofits, universities, and schools. Her book, Unfiltered: How To Be As Happy As You Look On Social Media, sold out on its first day. Jessica has presented all over the country including at TEDx, Facebook, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, WW, and the United Nations. She has appeared on The TODAY Show, ABC News, Access Hollywood, KTLA, CBS, NY1, and in Forbes, Fast Company and Women's Health. Jessica hosts a weekly business segment on Entrepreneur.com.
An award-winning television journalist, Jessica uses her 20+ years of experience to help executives, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists prepare for keynotes, panels, and on-air interviews.
Steve Herz is President of The Montag Group, a sports and entertainment talent and marketing consultancy. He is also a career advisor to CEOs, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and young professionals. Prior to joining TMG, Steve was the President and Founding Partner of IF Management, an industry leader whose broadcasting division became one of the largest in the space, representing over 200 television and radio personalities. The agency represents some of the biggest names in sports and news media, including NBC Sports Mike Tirico, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt and Dan Shulman and CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward.
Herz received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School. Herz is involved with several charities, including serving on the local leadership council at Birthright Israel. He has also been a volunteer tutor at the Horizon High School at Rikers Island Prison in NYC and the Harlem Academy Charter School. Steve is married with two children and lives on the Upper West Side of New York City.
Bari Weiss is a journalist and the author of “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” which won a 2019 National Jewish Book Award and a Natan Notable Book Award. From 2017 to 2020, Bari was an opinion writer and editor at The New York Times. Before that, she was an op-ed and book review editor at The Wall Street Journal and a senior editor at Tablet Magazine.
Bari is also the winner of the Reason Foundation’s 2018 Bastiat Prize, which honors writing that “best demonstrates the importance of freedom with originality, wit, and eloquence.” In 2019, Vanity Fair called Weiss the Times's "star opinion writer" and The Jerusalem Post named Bari the seventh most influential Jew in the world.
Yonatan Winetraub is co-founder of SpaceIL, a $100M Israeli non-profit organization that attempted to land Beresheet, the first private interplanetary robotic mission, on the Moon on April 11, 2019. This historic achievement made Israel one of only seven countries to orbit the moon and reach the lunar surface. SpaceIL is currently planning its next mission into space.
A key goal of SpaceIL is to inspire the next generation of space researchers and to promote STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education and scientific exploration. To date, SpaceIL has reached over one million children.
Yonatan has spoken about space technology and radical shifts in the space industry to audiences all over the world. Yonatan is currently a PhD candidate and Bio-X Bowes fellow in Biophysics at Stanford University where he is studying a method to interpret and intercept cancer cell communication. In addition, he was part of the International Space University Program at NASA studying the creation of colonies on Mars utilizing shelter and water from Martian lava caves.
Yonatan has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and also studied Computational Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University where he focused on how regions in the brain collaborate to create our emotions. He has published many papers in the fields of neuroscience, cancer imaging and aerospace engineering.
Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including, most recently, Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. In 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a leading behavior change tech company with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.
She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.
She serves on numerous boards, including Onex and The B Team.
Her last two books, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder and The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night At A Time, both became instant international bestsellers.
Excel Fellows are empowered to shape the future of the North American and international Jewish community and to strengthen their connection to the State of Israel. Our Fellows actively drive engagement within our community as well as their local communities, including Fellow-organized professional events, philanthropic ventures, and social gatherings. Our Fellows are geographically dispersed throughout North America and Israel and the Excel Leadership Board works to engage the community year-round.
