Kav Mashve: Breaking the glass ceiling for Arab managers

Integrating minorities into decision-making processes has proven to be an important step in elevating equality as they become change agents influencing diversity and inclusiveness.

As past efforts had only focused on increasing the number of Arabs entering the Israeli job market overall, Kav Mashve started the Lead Forward program in 2016 to train and empower Arab professionals from various industries for managerial positions. In cooperation with Lahav Executive Education, Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University, we give Arab talents access to leadership training including management concepts and operational tools, addressing career-relevant themes, practices and challenges. The program has already included about 100 promising young Arab professionals (4 cohorts) where an average of 80% of the graduates gained promotion within a year of graduating from the program.

In 2020, Kav Mashve launched our first-ever Al-Mada program, an executive leadership program for the personal advancement of Arab professionals from the Israeli business market. The program emerged from the Lead Forward program and includes three components: an academic MBA degree of five semesters at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University, parallel leadership training by the Institute for Quality Leadership and a two-week study visit to the London School of Economics and Political Science.

As an extension, we have initiated an independent Leaders Alumni Network managed by a steering committee of program graduates. This network gives all graduates a platform to continue to develop professionally, receive peer support, build connections, share information leading to job circulation and create new social impact initiatives.