Moving to Israel in 2014 to expand her personal and professional horizons turned out to be the right decision for Jennifer Elias, on both counts.
First, she met her business partner, Jessica Rosner, over Shabbat dinner at The home of a mutual friend not long after arriving from her native France. Then she met her personal partner – a few months before the COVID pandemic set in. They were wed last year.
Shortly before giving birth on June 9 to her firstborn, a son, Elias spoke with The Magazine about how these two life tracks have been enhanced by her aliyah, just as she had hoped.
Elias did a Masters’s in Business and went to law school in France. This was followed by internships in Paris and London. But she understood that “the most exciting and dynamic ecosystem for entrepreneurship, for start-ups, for creativity, was Israel – and Tel Aviv.
“And I wanted to work in this environment. That was the professional reason for my aliyah,” she said.
Elias has always had a deep personal connection with Israel and felt that she “wanted to contribute to the country and enjoy the Tel Aviv lifestyle that is so dynamic and international and social for young people.”
Elias initially worked for a start-up but says she “always had in mind” that one day she would find her own entrepreneurial project.
“When I met Jessica,” she said, “we immediately clicked and became very good friends. She wanted to help me integrate and it was incredible. After a while, it became obvious that we both wanted to create something and we felt we were a match.
How Tech It Forward was born
“So when the timing was right we created Tech It Forward to help Israeli start-ups connect to international markets and to help global corporations scout and work with the best hi-tech start-ups Israel has to offer.”
Over the past, nearly nine, years, Tech It Forward has catalyzed more than 50 pilots, investments and collaborations with global corporations on behalf of over 120 portfolio start-ups. It has sponsored 200 tech events that have attracted more than 10,000 participants.
“I would say now that Tech It Forward is a big part of who I am, as every project is meaningful, impactful, new, dynamic and creative,” said Elias.
“I’m learning a lot about the ecosystem every day, but also about global trends, and how different cultures look for different things and do business in varied ways.”
Her business partner, Rosner, was born in New York to an American father and an Italian mother and has lived in Israel since the age of five. Rosner grew up in Jerusalem speaking English. Her husband, like Elias, is French.
“When I got married and moved to Tel Aviv, it was the first time I interacted with a completely Israeli community. Until then I was in a very multicultural environment with many languages around, even in high school and Sherut Leumi [National Service],” Rosner said.
A year and a half ago Rosner and her husband moved back to Jerusalem with their three young children, now aged eight, four and almost a year.
Coming from their varied backgrounds gives Elias and Rosner “a deeper understanding of other cultures,” she said.
“When we bring international corporates to Israel, we have an understanding of their side as well as the Israeli side. Startups here sometimes have difficulty with that, so it’s a big advantage for us to understand how these corporates think and how they prioritize things, which is not necessarily how Israeli entrepreneurs prioritize.”
For example, Rosner said, Israeli start-ups excel at coming up with advanced, deep-tech innovative products, “but they put too much emphasis on the product and tend to forget that there’s more to it from the marketing and promotional perspective. Companies coming from abroad don’t always prioritize the product as Number One and this is where our understanding of the American and European cultures comes in. It really helps in negotiations and making each side understand each other, increasing the chances for success.”
The two women have a very similar mindset.
“We’re both go-getters, very goal-driven,” says Rosner. “But we also have our own strengths. We are like a good married couple in the way we complement each other. We have a lot of respect for each other and that’s a big part of our success together.”
Elias sees them both as “Israeli but also very international,” and believes that “Israeli start-ups can benefit from an outsider’s eye in order to connect to foreign markets.”
When asked what she loves most about her life here, Elias says, “The most incredible thing about Israel that you would never experience abroad is the unique social life. You can easily meet people from different backgrounds and different countries. My friends here are really different and I don’t think I would have met them anywhere else. We all have something in common but have our own unique stories and this is very enriching.”
When asked about the aspects of Israeli life that she finds distressing, she notes that this is “a very intense country, difficult to navigate if you are not resourceful.”
Most of all, she is troubled by economic inequities.
“Prices are high, and salaries vary widely. They are very low for certain professions. I feel badly when I go to a nurse because I know he or she is paid so little compared to anyone in hi-tech, and this breaks my heart,” she said.
Elias’s advice to anyone planning aliyah is to get connected to a community quickly. Her sister also made aliyah a couple of years ago and she has several cousins who live in Israel too.
“It’s important when you arrive to build yourself a support structure. This can easily be done thanks to communities, friends of friends, even distant cousins,” Elias said.
“Here, communities are really helpful and kind. When you have these support structures in place, you can understand the differences between cities and understand how to get a job.”
It can be a religious community, she said, “but also a yoga one, a parent one, a professional one, a women-in-tech one!”
Getting a job in Israel, she explained, is not the same as getting a job in Europe.
“You must connect with communities beforehand,” is her advice. ■
Jennifer Elias, 34 From Rennes, France to Tel Aviv, 2014