“A great leader knows the crucial difference between leadership and management.

Leadership is all about the ability to gather people behind you and to understand what is driving each and everyone of them.”

Raz Bachar is the Managing Director at Microsoft for Startups in Israel. An executive with over 13 years of international business and startup experience, Raz and his team are facilitating a variety of collaboration, partnerships and strategic initiatives between Microsoft’s product and business groups and Israel’s vibrant startup ecosystem. In 2020, he leveraged his position at Microsoft to found the acceleration program “AI For Good”, helping purpose-driven ventures advance their AI solutions for positive social impact. Prior to his role at Microsoft, Raz was the Head of Startup Business Development in EMEA for Amazon Web Services and oversaw the growth of AWS across startup ecosystems in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His earlier career spanned numerous engineering and tech consulting roles, among others the founding of a boutique system integration company, an engineering role at Amdocs and an engagement as Pre-Sales Solutions Architect at Hewlett-Packard.

Apart from his previous mentoring engagements for Techstars and Startupbootcamp, Raz joined 50:50 Startups as a mentor in 2019 to support cross-cultural businesses with Jewish and Arab co-founders. Additionally, Raz also serves as mentor at HackAutism, a volunteer-based initiative developing solutions for challenges of people on the autism spectrum.

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CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

2019 - Managing Director - Microsoft for Startups

2012 - Head of Startup Business Development, EMEA - Amazon Web Services

2010 - Pre-Sales Solutions Architect - Hewlett Packard Enterprise

2010 - Quality Assurance Engineer - Amdocs

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