Charedi Microsoft Senior VP Breaks Glass Ceilings As He Sets Out To Become A Rabbi-Engineer

NEW YORK (VINnews) — Yitzchak Kesselman, a Charedi hi-tech leader and innovator who is probably the highest-ranking charedi employee of Microsoft, sees no contradiction between his taxing day job and the new role he is setting out for himself. After moving from Israel to the US, Kesselman, who heads Microsoft’s Messaging and Real-Time Analytics Platform, has taken off time to study for the rabbinate in the coming year.

In an interview with Globes magazine, Kesselman said that “I have never seen any dissonance between my work and my faith. There is a reason we have a physical body. We have a purpose to do good in the world. Every time we build technologies that really succeed in helping people, I am filled with a sense of meaning.”

Despite the physical aspect of doing good, Kesselman sought to do good for his soul as well, taking a full year off to pursue his rabbinic studies:

“This is a full year of intensive studies, in which we delve deeper into issues relevant to the daily life of the Jews, ” he explains. “In the program I am taking there are seven exams, each of which is oral and written, and in order to succeed it is necessary to demonstrate knowledge of the subject across the entire chain of law, from the halachic rulings to the latest rulings. This is something I have wanted do for many years.”

Kesselman can afford the luxury of taking the year off after many years at the cutting edge of technological advances, including a major role in the development of AI.

Born in Riga, Latvia, the 39-year-old father of five immigrated to Israel with his parents at age 6. He grew up in Ramla and says he was drawn to technology at a young age, infatuated by computers and software in elementary school. He became religious at high school in Tel Aviv, after which he enrolled in the pre-army Atuda academic program. “In the mornings I studied calculus and data structure at Tel Aviv University, and in the evenings I studied Talmudic tractates and Hasidic literature at yeshiva.” After completing a bachelor’s degree in computer science, he served as an officer in the computing unit of the IDF Intelligence Corps.

Kesselman became one of the first charedi employees at Microsoft Israel and one of the leaders in the integration of the charedi population into the tech giant. He joined Microsoft a decade ago and currently manages a division of 400 employees worldwide. He is behind the development of real-time data analysis capability in Microsoft Fabric, an end-to-end data management and analysis product allowing employees in non-tech positions to generate significant insights from huge amounts of data. “This product is what I believe will fuel the next generation of AI services,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said when he introduced the product at the company’s annual conference in May.

“AI plays a central role in all the company’s products,” says Kesselman. Microsoft is the company that has invested major resources in chat-bot ChatGPT developer OpenAI.

Kesselman envisages a bright future for AI.  “Like any technological leap, it will solve many problems and make current tools superfluous, and will bring new challenges and new possibilities. On a personal note, as a Chabadnik, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who was an electrical engineer by profession, referred to innovative scientific discoveries as part of preparing for a better world. Over the years, the Rebbe often referred to scientific or technological issues while learning lessons from them as part of God’s instructions. This phenomenon should certainly be seen as a recognition of the importance of science in life, and even in Jewish life.”

Early in his career, Kesselman was development director at Retalix (a retail data company), where he managed a relatively large team. He joined Microsoft in 2013 as product manager. He left Microsoft in 2021 to become director of monitoring at Google and in May 2023 returned to Microsoft to become a Vice-President.

“Despite the excellent place I am in today, it is important for me to emphasize that my professional path, especially at the beginning, was also accompanied by difficulties and dealing with stigmas. In the first years, before Microsoft, I worked in various companies both in Israel and abroad, and there was a phrase that repeated itself – ‘if only all religious people were like you’, and I admit that even though it was an attempt to flatter, I never felt comfortable with it. I don’t think I’m that special, just as I do believe that the more different people get to know and be exposed to a language different from them, the greater the understanding that in the end we are all similar.”

Of Microsoft, he says, “The policy in the field of diversity and inclusion is part of the company’s DNA, and there is a feeling here that there is everything from everything. No one has ever expected me to give up something of myself to get ahead, and I believe that when a person acts according to his principles, people respect them.” Several years ago, he and his family relocated to New York.

“A few months after the relocation, during an online meeting with a large client, we were asked to schedule a follow-up meeting for Friday. My manager put the call on mute, and asked me when Shabbat was coming in, so I wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable.”

Despite the relocation, “a significant part of my wonderful group is in the Israel development center, so I come to Israel several times a year,” says Kesselman, who adds that there are other ביaredi men and women he works with, some in the US and some in Israel. “When talking about ביaredim, even in charedi society there are many streams, each of which has its own nuances. It makes the job interesting on a personal level as a manager, to work with people from dozens of countries, and of course also from many streams in charedi society.”

Kesselman has been among those pushing for integration of men and women from charedi society at Microsoft. “We invited candidates for job interviews whose dry data did not exactly match the common pattern of the average tech employee and we saw that a high percentage of them passed the interviews and were accepted,” Kesselman says about the project. However, he clarifies, “It is important to note that it is not that we lowered the bar, but only removed some of the barriers that got in the way. With the time and experience I have gained, I have learned that accepting the other does not come at the expense of professionalism, but the opposite. I truly believe and hope that this can be our starting point to create a better world.”

Even before he moved to the US, he was also personally involved in hiring charedi women to work at Microsoft. “We looked at how it was possible to diversify the company’s employees without compromising on quality, and this is something that needs to be clarified: diversity is not affirmative action, but the removal of barriers to qualified candidates. We had to look outside the box and examine candidates from different educational institutions, for example higher education institutions for charedi women. During the interviews, I heard very positive feedback from managers who interviewed them and were happy to see the high level of talent, which was unknown to them due to artificial barriers.”

Kesselman offered his own tips for how charedim can become part of the tech work force:

“I believe that every man and woman from the charedi community who wants to integrate into the tech industry can do so like anyone else – with hard work, curiosity, and a willingness to learn and improve. Many companies already understand the importance of employee diversity, and I believe that creative and smart people who work hard will always have a way to integrate.”

However, Kesselman also recommends looking for dedicated training programs and relevant mentoring programs. “These can help candidates take the first step to building their careers, help remove barriers as they exist, dispel their initial fears and of course see that there is no glass ceiling, which I hope reading this interview will also do for them.”