Eyal Golombek was born in Ramat Hasharon and fell in love with technology at a young age, already dismantling and reassembling computers as a hobby at age 7. As a teenager, he discovered the world of software and started experimenting with coding and “Hacking”. When he was 15, Timeout magazine held an online trivia competition to win a holiday at a luxury hotel, close to his parents’ wedding anniversary – and Eyal wrote a bot that automatically answered the quiz questions, sending his parents to enjoy the prize. Throughout his high school years, alongside computer studies, Eyal played in the high school premier basketball league and even led his team to the state cup final. He completed his high school studies as a city excellence student.
Golombek enlisted in the “Arazim” track of the Intelligence Corps, to which only about 10 young people are recruited annually. As part of the track, he completed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science with dean’s honors in just two years. He then continued to serve in a classified unit and went to an officers’ course. During his service, he participated in some of the Intelligence Corps’ most central operations, won the Israel Security Award twice, the Unit Excellence Award, and the Intelligence Head’s Excellence Award for Independence Day. Meanwhile, he completed a master’s degree in computer science with highest honors.
Family Business
“In the army, I learned the power technology has to change the world, and the immense power a group of people working together for a common goal has”, he says.
He was discharged with the rank of Major after serving as team leader and commander of a training course in the 8200.
Despite his achievements, the choice of a technological career wasn’t self-evident: he had to choose between this career and joining the family business in a completely different industry – flour. Eyal’s father, Hadar Golombek, is the CEO and owner of one of the leading flour mills in the country – “Dagan”, the mill was established in 1940 by Eyal’s great-grandfather, and since then its management has been passed down from father to son. “Of course my father dreamed that I would continue after him, but I wanted to go out on my own path and build a career myself”, Eyal says.
Upon his discharge three years ago, he joined the cybersecurity company Dazz as its first employee. Since then, he has led a central part in building the product, its characterization, and sales. In his first year at the company, he wrote the first lines of code for the product and designed its architecture. He then recruited and led the company’s first team of engineers, which has since grown to a team of more than 50 engineers.
Today, as VP Product, he manages teams in Israel and the U.S. “Throughout my path, I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing people”, he says, “and with revolutionary technologies I’ve had the privilege to influence, whether in protecting the largest companies in the economy, or in actually shaping reality in the Middle East.
“It especially pleases me to see people I managed and mentored progressing and succeeding”, Eyal says. “One of the greatest moments of satisfaction was on a reserve duty day I arrived at a year ago – I discovered that all the team leaders in the unit were trainees in the course I led, and they are all excellent managers and commanders. Also at Dazz, some of the employees I managed are already starting to take significant leadership roles and I’m waiting for the day when the company grows a bit more and I can see them leading entire organizations.
“There’s no substitute for me for the satisfaction of working with people. To manage, mentor, lead, promote and learn from these people are the things I wake up for in the morning.
“Mentoring activities are a big part of my daily routine. Alongside mentoring my employees at Dazz, I take part in a mentoring program for young commanders in the army, and I volunteered in a mentoring program for ultra-Orthodox female students to support their integration into the high-tech industry.”
Thwarting Attacks
With the outbreak of the war, he reported for reserve duty, and for 40 days was involved in establishing new intelligence capabilities that, according to him, directly assisted in thwarting attacks in the north and protecting soldiers in the Gaza sector. “The capabilities that my small reserve team and I developed in the first days of fighting are currently managed by several regular teams and will continue to affect intelligence pictures until the end of the war”, he says. “Even today I’m in direct contact with the unit commanders and arrive for reserve duty as needed to maintain the capabilities we built.”
