"Honest feedback is how you learn, pivot, and grow, and without it it’s really hard to create a successful company in the long-term"
What: Early on in her career, Avital worked as an international liaison for the Israeli Embassy’s Trade and Economic Division in London, assisting Israeli companies and start-ups in developing their business strategy, raising capital, and securing international clients and partners. After making aliyah in 2016, she was involved in the venture-capital and start-up industry, and two years later founded HiPitched, a boutique agency that focuses on strategic thinking and design, creating brands and products so that their clients can be “a voice above the noise.” So far, the firm has worked with 25 clients in a variety of sectors and locations, including Singapore, London, the US, and Israel.
Where: Avital was raised in the Edgware neighborhood in London, and earned a BA in political science and international relations from the University of Birmingham. She’s worked in London, Washington, New York, and Tel Aviv, and now resides in Jerusalem with her husband, Rachmiel, a qualified lawyer who currently learns full-time at the Mir yeshivah.
Why: It’s always impressive when someone can achieve so much professionally, yet still remains passionate about making a meaningful difference in the Jewish world. At the young age of 27, Avital has already worked with leading investment firms and start-ups, but still devotes much of her time to teaching and mentoring young, frum women about the workplace. Since moving to Israel, she’s taught classes at various seminaries and kiruv programs on female leadership and morality in the workplace, and she’s been active in facilitating and encouraging women getting high-tech positions in Israel. At the end of her lectures, she always sends the young women a document of the articles, videos, and podcasts that have personally helped her to grow in Judaism.
When I was 18, I was elected to be president of one of the biggest Jewish college societies in the UK. I was managing a 20-person committee, all of whom came from very different Jewish backgrounds and had very different ideas of what the role of a Jewish society on campus should be. During this time, I also established and oversaw the running of the first Jewish Society winter ski trip to the French Alps. The regular university ski trip traveled by bus during Shabbos and I didn’t want Orthodox students to miss out on the skiing experience. The position also involved speaking on numerous student panels across the country, on a multitude of topics, and cooking and hosting Friday night dinners for over 100 people (sometimes very important people, like Chief Rabbi Mirvis) each week.
I would say that aside from learning how to cook for a huge number of people the experience taught me three core lessons. The first is the importance of listening to your predecessors. I made a real effort to reach out to Jewish Society presidents before me, to hear about their experience and understand what they would have done differently if they were to redo their year. This gave me a head start going into the role.
The second is the importance of genuine care, or realizing that people have needs and are not commodities. At every committee meeting, I made sure that there would be a hot cooked meal (food is very important to students). I also made a real effort to speak with each member of every committee at least twice a month, in order to find out how things were going, both in terms of their role and in their personal lives.
The third is how to delegate. Each person on the committee had a role they were elected to do, be it events, cooking for Friday night, Israel campaigns, and so on. I realized very quickly that if I tried to control each person’s role, thinking I knew how to do a better job, the team would lose momentum, resentment would form, and I’d be unable to actually focus on the role I was elected to do — leading and coaching the team.
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