Yifat Oron captured a lot of attention this summer when Blackstone, one of the world’s largest investment firms, chose her to head its new office in Tel Aviv. But with more than 20 years of experience as a tech investor and executive in Israel, Oron has already been driving innovation in Israel’s tech sector for many years.
“I grew up in Israel, but my parents moved to New York when I was 16, which was very fortunate,” Oron said. “I was able to defer my army service while I studied at the University of Pennsylvania, in a dual-program of engineering and finance, a combination that would become the theme of my career. When I came back for the army, I did officer school and then joined the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of R&D (MAFAT), where they are developing defense technology projects that are 10-20 years ahead of their time.”
Eventually, Oron landed a job with JPMorgan Chase, and then came back to Israel to found a venture capital fund, Vertex Partners, working with early-stage startups. Then, in 2013, a new opportunity opened up.
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“I met a gentleman from Bank Leumi who said he was trying to figure out how to get the banking system more exposed to the Start-up Nation,” Oron said. “This was a time when the Israeli economy was split between the tech sector and everything else, and most of the financing options available were from foreign lenders. The question was whether the banking system can be more a part of the tech ecosystem. I felt at the time that this was a project that could change the map for startups, and I decided to join.”
As the CEO of LeumiTech, Oron’s job was “to build a bank within a bank that would provide all of the needs of a tech company. It was very different than regular banks. Whatever an entrepreneur wants to start a company, we would have it. We started growing very quickly, and served a large part of the tech community. And not surprisingly, the other banks soon did similar things.”
That innovation did wonders for the hi-tech sector as a whole, Oron said. “In order to grow an industry, you need to have all the necessary players in your ecosystem. Now, the banks were competing to make it easier for startups, offering more competitive rates and better services. I did that for seven years, and it was very rewarding and industry-changing.”
It was after this that Oron was introduced to Blackstone, a global equity firm with some $700 billion under management. The fit was right, and the company announced in April that she would head the company’s new office here.
Blackstone’s decision to open an office in Tel Aviv, instead of merely keeping tabs on the local scene, reflects the changing reality in the local market and serves as a signal to others.
“The industry has evolved tremendously in recent years, and when a company like Blackstone says that it thinks Israel is a place to be, the ripple effect around the world is tremendous,” Oron said. “The significance goes far beyond the deals we will do here. It shouts to the world that you need to know what is happening here.”
Most of Oron’s job now is looking for and making investments for the $4.5b. Blackstone Growth fund, the firm’s growth equity business, “Growth companies are often tech-oriented, but they don’t have to be,” she said. “We have already funded one company in the cybersecurity space, Wiz, and there will be many more coming. Our purpose is to help these companies grow to the next level, and we have a lot of resources at our disposal around the world to do so. Among other things, we are the largest real estate owner in the world, and we have more than a billion square feet of logistics space.”
Oron is passionate about eliminating gender stereotypes that can hold women back.
“In Israel, we have grown by about 1,000% in the number of companies led by women,” she said. “I get notes from women I have never met saying that the fact that Blackstone picked a woman to lead their office was very important for them. The world has changed in a huge way.”
But, she said, there is more work to be done. “In my home, if someone would ask my daughter to describe her mother and father using all kinds of descriptive elements except for gender, you wouldn’t be able to tell who’s a woman and who’s a man. Eliminating preconceptions is critical to reaching the full equilibrium between men and women. I hope that one day, we won’t even have to talk about women in tech.”