Yair Safrai, chairman at Impact First Investments, is an experienced veteran of Israel’s high tech and venture capital industries. In the last few years, Yair has served as an Active Chairman, board member, private investor, and Acting CEO of several high-tech companies and investment funds. In the mid-1990’s, Yair co-founded Concord Ventures, a $270m group of funds where he is still active today. At the very onset of Israel’s VC industry, Yair served as VP of the Nitzanim Venture Fund, one of Israel’s first and most successful VC funds. Before joining Nitzanim, Yair oversaw business development at BVR Technologies, and held key consulting, marketing, and business development positions at IGS Inc. and at P.O.C. Yair holds a B.Sc. in Economics and Management from Tel Aviv University, an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from Wharton Business School. Yair served as jet fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force.

Cecile is the Founder of Impact First Investments. Cecile specializes in merging technology, profit and social impact, and is considered a pioneer of the impact industry in Israel as well as a thought leader of the impact industry worldwide.

Prior to founding Impact First, Cecile managed the Noaber Foundation’s Israeli investments for over 14 years and has extensive hands-on management experience with high-tech start-ups. Additionally, Cecile held executive positions and led several companies as a CEO and, on behalf of the Noaber Foundation, served as a chairperson and board member on many more. Cecile was one of the initiators of the Al-Bawader private equity fund, established to invest in businesses in the Arab community in Israel. Cecile volunteers as a mentor at the Keren Shemesh Foundation for the Encouragement of Young Entrepreneurs. Cecile is a board member and observer of Impact First’s portfolio companies. Prior to beginning her professional career, Cecile served as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces. Cecile is also an alumnus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she studied political science and international relations.

Nechemia (Chemi) J. Peres, chairman of the advisory committee at Impact First Investments, is a Managing General Partner and Co-Founder of Pitango Venture Capital. In 1992, Chemi founded the Mofet Israel Technology Fund, an Israeli venture capital fund publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Chemi has served on the boards of several NASDAQ companies such as AudioCodes, BackWeb, Magic Software Enterprises, Aladdin, VocalTec, Orckit Communications and Koor Industries, among others. Chemi currently serves on the boards of numerous Pitango portfolio companies and also for several non-profit organizations. He is chairman of the Peres Center for Peace, board member at Social Finance Israel, and serves on the board of Governors of the Caesarea Foundation. Chemi holds a BSc. degree in Industrial Engineering and MBA from Tel Aviv University. Chemi served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force for 10 years.

Rami Kalish, chairman of the investment committee at Impact First Investments, is a Managing General Partner and Co-Founder at Pitango Venture Capital. Prior to founding Pitango, he held sales and marketing positions at IBM and senior executive roles at Orbotech. Rami currently serves on the Board of Directors of ForeScout Technologies, Surf Communication Solutions, Red Bend Software, YCD Multimedia, WeFi and RocketPlay (formerly: Gamingo). Rami served on the Board of Directors of several Pitango portfolio companies that went public on NASDAQ, including: ITXC, CardGuard, VocalTec, Retalix, Optibase, RADWARE and on the Board ot Optonol (acquired by Alcon). Rami is a member of the advisory boards of the Technion Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center, The Merage Foundation for U.S.-Israel Trade and The Educational Center for Tolerance and Peace of the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. Rami holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and Information Science from the Technion Institute of Technology.

Dr. Yoav Ben-Dror, founding partner at Impact First Investments, is an Israeli investor primarily interested in medical devices and stock exchange software companies. Dr. Ben-Dror is a board member at Keren Shemesh, Chairman of Dagon Batey-Mamguroth Le-Israel Ltd., Chairman of Radiancy Inc., Chairman of Fitango Inc., Chairman of Neurotech Solutions Ltd., Director at Final Inc., Trustee at the Hecht-Zilzer Trust, and a member of the Board of Trustees of H.I.T – Holon Institute of Technology. Dr. Ben-Dror is a former Chairman of Dubek Ltd., former director of H.I.T, and former Director of Cellcom Ltd, one of Israel’s leading telecommunications companies. Dr. Ben-Dror was involved with InStent, sold to Medtronic in 1996, Influence, sold to AMS in 1999, and Disc-O-Tech, whose technology was sold to Kyphon and J&J in 2007. Dr. Ben-Dror holds a J.S.D. from UC Berkeley and is a former lecturer of Law at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Ben-Dror is a director at ANU – making change LTD. (HLZ) (social activity).

Yoram in the general manager of the Microsoft Israel R&D center, one of the three Microsoft Global Development Centers (GDCs), responsible for the R&D centers in Haifa and Tel Aviv, new core R&D projects and incubations, and partnering with the local VC community and academia.

Yoram is a board member of the Israeli Advanced Technology Forum (IATI) and Chair of the Multinational R&D Center in Israel (MNC Forum). In 2010 Yoram founded the MNC Forum, a forum that brings together the General Managers of all the Multinational R&D centers in Israel, which consists of close to 50 companies. In addition, Yoram is a member of the core team of Breaking the Impasse (BTI), and have founded the “Small Steps” workgroup within BTI, to encourage and drive small steps towards co-existence between Israel and Palestine.

Previously to his current role, Yoram was the CTO of the Microsoft Israel R&D, VP R&D and COO of the products group at Amdocs (NYSE:DOX), responsible for the Amdocs Products suite and spent 11 years in product development roles at Microsoft’s Headquarters in Redmond, including products such as Windows 95, NetMeeting, Microsoft Reader, Rights Management Server (RMS) and Office Information Bridge Framework.

Yoram is the co-author of 23 patent applications and several IETF RFCs including Dynamic LDAP. He has a BSc in Computer Science from the Technion.

Dr. Amir Lerman, MD. Is a professor of medicine and a consultant in the cardiovascular division at the Mayo graduate school of Medicine. Dr. Lerman serves as an associate chair and the director for research for the cardiovascular division and the director of the Mayo cardiovascular research center. Dr. Lerman graduated from the Technion school of Medicine in Haifa Israel and completed his training in internal medicine, cardiovascular diseases and invasive cardiology at the Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Leman interest is coronary physiology and imaging, regenerative medicine and digital health. Dr. Lerman is serving on the advisory board of several companies and a faculty member of the Mergae Institue. Dr. Lerman published more than 500 manuscripts, book chapters and reviews; the NIH, AHA, and several foundations support his research.