Call in the Lefty

On Tuesday afternoon, Josh, one of my bosses at GSE asked me if I could get him some marketing slides explaining what my group, Portfolio Valuation, uses on pitches to market clients. I contacted some colleagues at D&P and got the slides sent over. Josh explained that he had two meetings on Wednesday with venture capital funds and he wanted to use the slides to explain what D&P does and how we can work together to serve VC clients in Israel.

Unfortunately, the email did not get through to Josh and when I saw him on the train in the morning right before morning services, he informed me that the meetings were at 10 and 11 am and that he needed the slides ASAP. We both broke out our laptops and began going through the material to prepare for his meetings and select what information was to be showed to the potential clients. He mentioned in passing that maybe I could come with him and the rest of the team to present to the VCs. I have wanted to attend pitches for a while and had arranged to go on one my last week in the New York office. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the pitch due to a client engagement.

Five minutes after we got to the office, Josh came by and told me I would join the team on the pitches. We drove from Ramat Gan to Herzlia – a coastal city just north of Tel Aviv. In addition to beautiful beaches, Herzlia is home to many large, multi-national businesses. We passed a Microsoft office, McKinsey and other US companies.

The pitches were really interesting, though unfortunately, they were fully in Hebrew, with the exception of the portions I presented and when I spoke the funds’ CFOs. I was able to understand large parts of the meeting, but was not at a point where I felt comfortable speaking Hebrew. I was excited to have the opportunity to see more of Israel’s financial industry world nad to get to participate in several pitches. When we returned to the office, Josh informed me that after the Sukkot holiday, he had several more pitches lined up and I was invited and encouraged to come along. It looks like I am going to get to become a pitch master… they are calling in the Lefty.