The coronavirus pandemic touched every nation on the face of the planet in 2020 and 2021. As schools and businesses closed, the global economy slowed dramatically and government spending increased to backstop national economies. At the same time, radically new work conditions and consumer needs accelerated changes in the way businesses buy and sell. Israeli investor and entrepreneur Michael Eisenberg joins the author and Elliott Management executive Dan Senor, along with the CEO of the Tikvah Fund in Israel, Amiad Cohen, to discuss the future of the post-coronavirus economy.
Dan Senor
Dan Senor is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling books The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World (2023) and Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle (2009), which has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is also the host of the Call Me Back podcast.
Dan is a partner and a member of the management committee at Elliott Investment Management L.P. During the presidential administration of George W. Bush, Dan was based in Baghdad for one year, where he served as chief spokesperson for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. For his service, he was awarded the Pentagon’s highest civilian honor—the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service—by the Secretary of Defense.
Dan currently serves on the boards of The Paul E. Singer Foundation, Start-Up Nation Central, and the Abraham Joshua Heschel School. He appears frequently on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS”, “CBS Mornings” and Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom”.
Dan holds a B.A. in History from the University of Western Ontario and studied in the one-year international program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Michael Eisenberg
Michael Eisenberg is a co-founder and Partner at Aleph, a venture capital fund focused on partnering with Israeli entrepreneurs to build large, meaningful companies and impactful global brands. Aleph has invested in over 25 companies including Lemonade, WeWork, Healthy.io, SparkBeyond, JoyTunes, and Bringg. Prior to Aleph, Michael was a General Partner at Benchmark Capital, where he led the investments in Wix.com, Gigya, and WeWork. Michael also sits on the boards of Yeshivat Har Etzion and Hashomer Hahadash and lectures frequently on topics such as the Israeli economy and Israeli entrepreneurship. Michael is the author of several books, including The Vanishing Jew, Ben Barukh, The Tree of Life and Prosperity, and Everyone Can Be Moses. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.
Amiad Cohen
Amiad Cohen is the director general of the Tikvah Fund in Israel, publisher of the Hebrew-language Hashiloach journal, and a partner in several business initiatives in the security and technology fields. He served as deputy commander of the elite “Egoz” unit in the Israel Defense Forces and for several years was head of security coordination in his native settlement of Eli. He previously directed the industrial and fiscal innovation divisions of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council.