Over 50 high-ranking Israeli business executives, including CEOs/CFOs (chief executive officers, chief financial officers), were treated to an eye-opening and informative conference, focusing on the financial, legal and mass media aspects of opening an American subsidiary, which was sponsored by Amcon Marketing at the Israel Export Institute in Tel Aviv.
The executives seeking the sage advice offered by both English- and Hebrew-speaking legal, financial and media experts, some of whom flew to Tel Aviv from the metro New York region, highlighted a wide cross-section of Israel’s business industry, including start-ups, medical-device companies, product manufacturers and wineries.
“As an executive recruiter working with Israeli companies hiring U.S.-based executives, we organized this event to help Israeli exporters succeed better and faster in America,” said Chuck Klein, managing partner of Amcon Marketing, which works closely with Israeli companies seeking to hire highly qualified individuals to run their American operations.
The recurring theme that was emphasized at the conference was that in order to succeed in the competitive American marketplace, Israelis would have to learn how to understand and relate to the “American mentality” of doing business, if they wanted to conquer various technology, industrial and consumer markets. “The reality is that it is preferable to hire American-born executives and support personnel to anchor an American subsidiary, because they understand the language and know how to get things done. The Israeli and American ways of doing business sometimes differ because of the cultural nuances. That’s just the way it is,” said Danny Krausz, the CEO of Krausz Industries, who has successfully launched an American branch of his Israeli company which provides coupling and repair clamp solutions for the U.S. water and wastewater industry. “Yes, it was not easy for me in the beginning to ‘let go,’ but after hiring talented American executives and personnel I can say that it was the most important thing to do, as we are doing very well since we opened our own company in the USA two years ago.”
At the end of each session, the Israeli executives huddled around the speakers in order to understand how to move forward with their expansion plans abroad.
