LAURENT EDEL

With his company Good Futur, Laurent searches throughout the world for New Ideas for Business Ventures , which he uses to advise entrepreneurs in France. In 1999, Laurent created Republic Alley – an incubator which enabled the launch of 12 start-ups and became a reference of the “Net Economy”. For Laurent, Ezra Venture is an innovative answer to the current needs of the Jewish community: "Ezra is everything I have dreamt of for the last 8 years, during which I have accompanied the launching of new projects. I now dream of more new ideas, including ones inspired by US experience, to open up the Jewish Community".

DEBORAH ELALOUF

Trained as a multimedia producer, Deborah created educational programs with Emme, Montparnasse Multimedia, Lambda Educational Technologies, Magnard, Albin Michel Education (production direction, editorialist direction and marketing program). She co-founded and manages Tralalere SA, a company which creates interactive contents for children. Sensitive to the Jewish culture, she wants to participate to Ezra Venture in order to induce an entrepreneurial spirit into non-profit initiatives.

GILLES ELALOUF

Gilles is the Director of Interactive Strategy of Publicis Group, and as such, works with many structures in the world of communication and of internet. He has been involved with the Jewish community for a long time, through Ezra Venture he is renewinghis interest for non-profit activities . For him, this project responds to a real need: “What can we do to help charities better respond to the needs of all French Jews? What can we do to spread the lessons learned in the business world into the non-profit sector? These are two challenges that, I hope, Ezra Venture will help to resolve.”

VANESSA FRAIBERGER

Vanessa’s skills set come from working and studying in many diverse and challenging environments. Upon graduating from Insead, she joined Ezra to shares these skills and to listen and learn from confronting ideas and experience with other members of Ezra and with young social entrepreneurs of the French Jewish community - Outside of Ezra, Vanessa structures limited recourse financings in a large French bank, to finance the construction of energy projects in emerging countries.

She's a strong believer in providing combined support to young social entrepreneurs for the development of their project: Ezra's support includes seed money, Ezra’s visibility, and Ezra's advisory services. This combined support helps socialentrepreneurs develop their project in a 'business-like' manner. It also helps projects be understood and accepted by public institutions, Jewish NGOs and institutions, donors and the targeted public.

BENJAMIN GIEVIS

Benjamin Gievis manages the interactive communication agency, Chewing Com, which he created in 1999. Passionate about new technologies and marketing, Benjamin started his career as an Internet consultant for the French Bank, Credit Agricole, before creating his start-up with the Republic Alley incubator. Through Ezra, Benjamin wishes to share his experience of creating a company and setting up a business, his taste for risk and his attachment to a "modern, open, tolerant and accepted" Judaism.

CHINE LANZMANN

Chine has 20 years of professional experience in media, communication and technology. After working for 9 years as a journalist and executive producer with Canal +, she created a web site for women (newsfam.com). Today, she is now a coach in communication at the Ecole Centrale and the ESSEC University.  She is a volunteer at Ezra Venture because, for her, it is a way to develop a living Judaism: "I have come to realize that being a Jew does not only mean dying in a concentration camp. With Ezra, I find a commitment that reinforces a sense of life".

JEROME LECAT

After engineering studies at The Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussés, Jérôme Lecat worked as a research director for Partech International, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo. In 1994, he co-founded Internet Way. As President, he grew the company to become the second ISP for the professional market in France. Today, Jérôme is an active Business Angel. He wants to participate to Ezra Venture because he dreams of a tolerant Jewish community, internally as well as externally: “I believe that I’m not the only one to make this kind of dream. For me, it’s time to make this dream a reality”.

SANDRA MOUYAL

Trained as a lawyer, Sandra turned to the communication field and became responsible for the communication department of Trinova Hub, a VC firm. Today, she works as a consultant in communication. Actively involved in the non-profit sector, she is eager to take part in Ezra Venture as she feels that it could introduce an entrepreneurial spirit into this world that she knows very well.

NATHALIE SERFATY

Trained as a lawyer, Nathalie works as an independent consultant and, at the same time, for the FSJU, the main federation of French Jewish social, educative, and cultural organizations. She is also responsible for international and institutional relations for the non-profit organization “Groupement pour le droit des minorités” (group for the protection of minorities’ rights), and she is the president of “Identité Plurielle / Identités Plurielles” –
(plural identity-identities), a non-profit organization which encourages citizenship education, social, intercultural and inter-religion dialogue.

STEPHANE VILLARD

A graduate of the Bordeaux Management School, Stephane is a Manager at Mazars in charge of evaluation and debt restructuring operations. In his work, he supports entrepreneurs and managers throughout the phases of development of their companies. Stephane would like to contribute his experience to Ezra fellows to support the growth of social, cultural and educational projects that French Judaism, in all its aspects and needs.

VINCENT WORMS

Vincent has an engineering background from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1982, he co-founded Partech International, an international venture capital firm. He has also served on the board of a number of private and public companies including Business Objects, Informatica, and Sangstat Medical. Vincent is active in philanthropic foundations that cover a variety of causes related to Israel and Jewish life, like Tsadik Fund, which is at the origin of Ezra Venture.