Cybersecurity entrepreneur Udi Mokady, Chairman and CEO of CyberArk, an information security company offering Privileged Account Security, gave a lecture in Hebrew on doing business in start-up nations to Hebrew 124, as well as Hebrew for Business.
Mokady received the 2018 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship from Brandeis University and a 2017 SC Media Reboot Award as a cyber security influencer. According to the Brandeis International Business School, the Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship is given annually to a person who best exemplifies the values of entrepreneurial spirit and independent thinking at Brandeis International Business School (IBS) while achieving outstanding success in the global marketplace through creative marketing and business strategies.
Mokady began by telling the students about his career path: since co-founding the company in 1999, he served as CyberArk’s chief strategist and visionary, overseeing global expansion, management, execution and corporate development. In 2005 he became the CEO of CyberArk.
During his time as CEO, Mokady lead CyberArk to achieve record growth while accelerating overall market adoption for privileged access security solutions to protest against an evolving advanced threat landscape. Today CyberArk has customers in 90 countries, and employees in 30 countries. Upon conclusion of his presentation, the students had the opportunity to ask Mokady questions.
When the concern of CyberArk’s products being bought and used for malintent was brought up, Mokady had a simple reply to the concerns. CyberArk makes security devices, explained Mokady: they are defensive tools, not offensive tools. Furthermore, CyberArk has to follow the expert regulations of two countries: the United States and Israel. These regulations define who the firm can or cannot trade with, which does not allow for the products to be used for harm. The biggest issue with this, according to Mokady, is being careful with who their partners sell to, as there have been issues in the market with companies selling to banned nations.
The audience also asked about the trend of most Israelis making companies with the purpose to sell them. Mokady responded saying that culturally, Israel is better for innovation and less so for long term projects. We tend to “bless the exit,” concluded Mokady. However, he reassured the audience that CyberArk is not looking for a quick exit.
Sara Hascal, the interim director of the Hebrew language program and organizer of the event, told The Brandeis Hoot that it was a wonderful opportunity for the students to be able to apply what they have been learning in class, as it is not often that while living in the United States, they get to speak about business in Hebrew. The event was sponsored by the Hebrew Program.
