The first job interview of Moshe Lipsker, CEO of Imperva Israel, was bad. It was right after he finished his university studies and applied to the start-up company Accord Networks. “The interviewers were a group manager and a team leader and because I knew nothing professionally, they started asking on my background I told them about the army, I was in the Golani patrol, one of them was in the Golani and the other in the paratroopers and at that moment the clique was formed. The essay was about the army. In the end I knew nothing but there was chemistry and they saw the potential. I was shocked that they accepted me,” he says.
Today in retrospect, with his standards when he examines job candidates, he realizes that basic things he expects others to know after the degree – he did not know then in that interview. “I think they were enthusiastic about the potential, taking responsibility, thinking big, looking outside the box, creativity. Although I didn’t know the material, I knew how to approach it,” he says.
Since then Lipskar has had many job interviews. In fact, for his current position as CEO and director of global research and development at the cyber company, he went through no less than 12 interviews. I come to interviews with some kind of fluo in mind and ask a lot of questions about the product. To me it is very critical in interviews, certainly in management positions. You must do the background check and must ask questions. As soon as you ask questions it turns the conversation from an interview to a meeting and then the click is also created and it makes the business less formal. This way you also find out who are the people you are going to work with. You are not being interviewed but also an interviewer, you have several options. Today I’m already at the stage where I’m not going ‘blind’. I only go to workplaces where there are people I enjoy working with, and that lifts me up. Therefore, I asked a lot of questions.”
One of the questions he was asked in these interviews was ‘Let’s say you got the job – what is the process you do, what are the steps’. Another question that was also asked as part of the same series of interviews was: ‘What is the problem/problems you identify in the company? And what will you do in the position in light of this diagnosis?’
“I really like these questions because I think that entering a position is critical to success. The first few days and weeks will define your entire success. In my opinion, it is related to entering the position in a methodical, correct, structured way and it helps for years to come. That’s where the strategy is built and after that it is released El Hapoel,” he says. He answers these questions with a concrete plan, steps he thinks should be taken in light of the problems or challenges he has identified. “I think for management positions it is very critical to find out that the person knows what he is doing and it won’t take him two years of grace, because there isn’t even 100 days of grace. When I arrived at Imperva I was ‘shot at’ from all directions – the first week was chaos.”
The wave of layoffs in Israeli high-tech did not spare Imperva either, and recently the company laid off 3% of its employees, 20 of them in Israel.
The layoffs reached you too, even if we thought that cyber might be a little more immune. How do you experience the market now?
“18% of the companies that are laying off are from cyber, because it is a sector that grew post-Corona with very large investments. A bubble was created and now there is a correction. Because we bring in half a billion dollars a year, we are very stable. There is a slowdown due to the macroeconomic situation in the world, but it is not that we are in a crisis. We prepared correctly already in the first half of 2022, and we identified the trends. We took actions to slow down recruitments, have a strong control over expenses, and when the request to optimize expenses came, we fired only 3% of the employees. In terms of management and the board, we reduced a lot because we prepared correctly. The combination of a stable company and proper preparation for the event allowed us to go through it in relative silence.”
Do you think this is behind us or will you have to fire again in 2023?
“I hope not. I think that what happened in the second half of 2022 is the necessary first correction. Regarding 2023, I think that because valuations have decreased there will be many mergers and acquisitions. There are opportunities for acquisitions here. So not only is there a positive correction there is also a natural correction of the number of companies, Everything will start to come together, I believe.”
These are Lipsker’s answers to the popular questions in job interviews:
tell me about yourself
“My name is Moshe, I am married plus five, four sons and a daughter, two soldiers. I live in Moshav Nachosha, manage Imperva Israel and manage Imperva’s global research and development.
Before that I was VP of Research and Development at Celebrity, I was 14 years at Polycom and before that at a start-up called Accord Networks.
Originally I am a development person but I developed in the worlds of product, strategy and management over the years. My drive is to bring myself 100 percent, to be significant, to have an impact. It fascinates me to be part of the turn around processes of organizations (processes of change and increasing profitability). This is the big challenge. I can define myself as a change agent. Manages processes of changing the future.
I am a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, I was a guard of an elite unit in the army and a senior staff officer, this helped me a lot in developing the corresponding career. In my opinion there is a correlation between the civilian world contributed by the military capability and vice versa. I studied computer science and philosophy at Bar Ilan, it’s not that common a combination but it shows who I am. In the end it helps in the business world because you are constantly asking questions. I also completed an executive MBA at the Hebrew University.
I really like to read books. I recommend Assaf Inbari’s Red Book, you must read it to understand the Israeli left, its development. Ari Shavit’s third house. Now I’m reading the biographies of Churchill and Bibi at the same time. Loves Paul Auster books. Beyond that, I like walks and trips, in Israel and in the world. This is me.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
This is a question I always ask people also in acts of mentoring and coaching that I do for many employees or managers under me. This is a good question because it focuses you. You imagine where you want to be in the future and then you cut the course backwards from the future. This is also true for the process of building a strategy – you start with the vision and then work your way backwards.
In another five years I see myself as the CEO of a very successful company and at the same time I hope to sit on several boards, to open my mind and contribute from experience beyond one company. I advise people in startups and see how much I can help, and I’m also interested in the variety. Many times one company is Very focused, very limited.”
What are your advantages?
“I have the ability to observe deeply. I listen to people, try to understand reality in the most objective way possible through a variety of opinions. I don’t cut right away. Does not start with exclamation marks but question marks. This is how I make the right decisions.
I know how to see the big picture, create a strategy. I have a strong operative ability along with mental and creative flexibility. I think in that sense it’s an interesting combination. This means that I know how to see a broad picture and also dive into the details and again return to see the big picture. Some people know one of the two, I have the combination. In addition, I have people skills, I am connected to people, they believe me, they follow me. Good managers need to know how to lead.”
What are your weaknesses?
“This is always a very tricky question. The broad managerial ability is also a weakness, because you see broadly but not deeply enough and then there are many professional challenges that you have to face in front of the professional people. In technological organizations, God is in the details, so you must go down to the details. If the built-in ability Your ability to take a broad view is a disadvantage, so you have to cover it up with a lot of study and preparation. In the end, I feel a gap when I come to get down to the details because my diplot is wide, it is not deep.
Another disadvantage is perhaps personal presentation. A manager has to give the presentation, there are those who do it really well. I have a lot of self-criticism in this matter.
Also, in the heat of action I run very fast and not always everyone keeps up. You have to adjust the pace to the people. It’s not that this disadvantage is unbridgeable, it’s a gap, like a scale like this that needs to be played and adjusted.
Why do you want the job?
“I have a very strong drive to both create meaning and make a change. In this position, in the situation we were in when I started, it was after the founders left, the company became global and there was a fall. In fact, the Israeli culture of the startup also began to fade. Imperva is built on Israel , if there is no Israel – there is no Imperva. We need someone there to protect the company from its globalization. This someone needs to know how to produce a strategy in which he succeeds both in flowing with the global and in producing the localization or the Israeli culture. Because if there is no Israeli culture, there is no ability to bring the great talents of Israeli cyber and society is becoming more mediocre. This is Imperva’s need in my view. Here is an example of a complete match of armament and purpose, because I am a change agent, identify the problems and know how to change reality by creating a strategy. My combination of also looking at a strategy level And the ability to make it happen on an operational level – both where to go and how to do it – is a unique combination of what Imperva needed at that moment.”
Why should we hire you?
“I’m total, I treat work like art. It entails work 24/7 – I’m in it all the time. I’m not someone who comes and goes. As far as I’m concerned, it’s my life for better or worse, but as soon as you’re total and have a strategy and you change reality – it happens.”