Meara Ashtivker
Meara is a new mom, a wife, and the COO of Masa Israel Journey. Fiercely loyal to family, friends, and colleagues, Meara deeply values personal and professional relationships. She enjoys connecting the people in her life with one another and is committed to her employees’ and friends’ professional development. The daughter of an Israeli, Meara grew up spending summers in Tel Aviv with her cousins. Needless to say, she’s involved in a long-term relationship with Israel. After participating in her own Masa program, Meara lived in Israel for four years and earned her M.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Meara was COO at an event tech startup where every action needed a strong “ROI” and the team lived by profit and loss. After doubling their sales with a new B2B approach, Meara decided to return to her great love – the Jewish/Israeli nonprofit world and became COO of Masa Israel Journey. As head of a 20-person team spread throughout the country, Meara is determined to run Masa like a business. In the increasingly competitive Jewish nonprofit world, everyone lives by their numbers and Masa’s success under Meara’s leadership will be determined by its growth. Meara is married to Amit, a handsome Israeli who spends 80% of his time traveling the country as a senior financial executive. To make it all work, Meara begins her days early, runs out of work at exactly 5pm to spend time with seven-month-old Lilach, orchestrates dinner, bath and bedtime, and—around 8pm—gets back to work.