AMIT, the alumni association representing veterans of Unit 81 - the technological arm of the IDF Intelligence Corps - has appointed Gali Sheskin as its new chief executive. The move places a leader with a background spanning community management, project development, and operations at the head of an organization whose members have gone on to shape Israel's technology sector in outsized ways.
Sheskin arrives at AMIT after stints as Community and Customer Success Manager at Venn, Project Development Manager at Ignite the Spark, and Head of Operations at enSights. Her professional path has consistently centered on building cohesion among groups of specialists and translating that cohesion into measurable outcomes - a skill set that maps closely onto AMIT's mission of connecting thousands of former unit members across companies, sectors, and borders. Outside her corporate roles, she has spent years volunteering in renewable energy and climate initiatives, championing entrepreneurs, both men and women, working in that space domestically and internationally. For readers curious about how technology communities organize themselves and extend influence beyond their original mandate, understanding networks like AMIT is a useful starting point before you get started exploring how Israel's intelligence-linked alumni ecosystems function.
She succeeds Chen Kamin, who led AMIT for five years, a period during which the association expanded its role as a connective structure for alumni moving from military intelligence work into civilian technology careers. Unit 81 itself has built a reputation as one of the most consequential incubators of technical talent within the Israeli defense establishment, producing engineers and founders who later launched or joined companies such as Wiz, Armis, Innoviz, Claroty, Tenzai, and Jazz. These firms span cybersecurity, autonomous sensing, and industrial protection - fields where the analytical and engineering discipline cultivated inside the unit translates directly into commercial advantage.
Why Military Technology Units Produce Civilian Innovators
Israel's intelligence technology units have long functioned as informal training grounds for entrepreneurship. Conscripts assigned to units like 81 work on advanced, high-stakes engineering problems - often involving signal processing, cryptography, or large-scale data systems - years before their civilian peers encounter comparable challenges. When these alumni leave service, they carry both technical fluency and a dense personal network of former colleagues who understand their capabilities firsthand. That network effect, rather than any single piece of technology, is often what seeds a new company. Associations like AMIT formalize this informal advantage, creating structured opportunities for mentorship, investment introductions, and collaboration that might otherwise rely on chance encounters.
What Sheskin's Appointment Signals
In her statement following the announcement, Sheskin framed her priorities around strengthening business and technological ties within the community and generating value across what she described as the broader ecosystem. That language suggests continuity with AMIT's existing direction rather than a sharp pivot, though her background in sustainability advocacy and operations management may bring fresh emphasis to how the association engages with emerging sectors beyond traditional cybersecurity and defense technology. For an alumni body whose members already sit at the center of some of Israel's most valuable technology exits, the challenge for new leadership is less about visibility and more about sustaining relevance as the founding generation of Unit 81 veterans ages and newer cohorts enter the workforce with different expectations of what a professional network should provide.