Shiri Ladelsky (33) - Senior Director of Engineering - Armis
Personal: Married and lives in Tel Aviv
Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science and computational linguistics from Tel Aviv University
Professional: Senior Director of Engineering at Armis. Previously served as Data Science Team Leader at Armis, VP R&D at Appfront, and Head of R&D at 3i-MIND.
One more thing: Spoken Word artist and rapper
When she was a student at the Reali High School in Haifa, and while her best friends were taking courses at the Open University to prepare for their futures, Shiri Ladelsky decided that rap music was more important. What started as a hobby at the age of 14, listening to Hip Hop group Shabak Samech on repeat, eventually led Ladelsky to recording an album - with a guest appearance by singer-rapper Nechi Nech - and performances around Israel.
In recent years, Ladelsky has replaced rap with Spoken Word, and these days hosts Spoken Word events and, of course, performs her own pieces about love, family, and life in general. "Spoken Word is the triangle of rap, poetry, and theater. When it came from the US to Israel, there were two groups that adopted it; first, rappers and second, theater people. When I perform, you can tell that I come from rap, "she says.
Ladelsky may be an artist at heart, but the rest of her time is spent navigating a demanding cybersecurity career. "Some people say they work in high-tech for the money and make music for the soul, but the truth is, I enjoy the combination of the two things that work on different parts of the brain."
Currently, Ladelsky serves as the director of a key development group at Armis - one of Israeli high-tech’s most promising unicorns, that has hit a $3.4 billion valuation. The company develops software that allows organizations to identify all devices connected to their network and track their behavior to detect threats. This may sound technical, but it can save lives in a time where MRI machines can also be targets for cyber-attacks. "Medical equipment that is networked and unsecured can disable hospitals, disconnect patients. We help identify these risks and deal with them."
In her current position, Ladelsky manages about 30 employees and is developing an important component at the core of Armis's technology. "Our job is to expand the sources of information that make it possible to identify devices that connect to the enterprise network, in order to give users the clearest and most accurate picture. Our goal is to be a kind of Google Maps that will give an organization a snapshot of all device activity."
She began her technological career in the military, serving for six years as a soldier and officer in Unit 8200. "When I was drafted, what we did still wasn’t called cyber. That concept developed during my service," she laughs. After demobilization, she graduated with honors from Tel Aviv University with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and computational linguistics. She then led development at two start-ups: Mati Kochavi’s 3i-MIND, which develops analytical software and data collection tools, and Appfront, which develops a digital platform for restaurants.
She began her career at Armis about four years ago, when she set up the company’s first data science team. "Data science helps identify which device has gone online and which operating system it uses based on statistical inference from device profiles we already know. Because we've already seen millions of devices, we know how they should behave, and assisted by models, can detect when an anomaly occurs."
After about a year, she was relocated to California, to work directly with Armis clients. "It's not very usual to move from the technical side to client-facing, and for me that really meant a career change at age 30. When you sit with a client and they ask a question, you can’t go and do research, you have to give answers on the spot. Two or three months after I moved to the US, I already had a presentation before a Fortune 100 company. I pulled an all-nighter, and sat with Armis’s founders to review the presentation. In the end, I remained the liaison with the client until they signed the contract and the money was deposited in the bank. For me, that was extraordinarily exciting."
What about the future? "My heart is in technology management. Will I go on the adventure of setting up something from scratch or will I work for a big company? I leave those possibilities open."
Executive Recommendation
Yevgeny Dibrov - Co-Founder & CEO of Armis, writes about Shiri Ladelsky:
"Shiri joined Armis about two years after the company's founding, and has been a leading figure in development ever since. Among other things, she built the company's data science team and the team's data infrastructure on which large parts of the product are currently based. In addition, she led development efforts with our Fortune 10 and Fortune 50 customers, and led a team that engaged in strategic integrations with other security companies. Today, Shiri leads a product group of about 40 developers at Armis , which is developing the company's flagship product, and Shiri's involvement - both technological and product-wise - helps make the product ever more successful."
This article is part of a larger project, "40 under 40", published by "Globes" in Hebrew.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 27, 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.