| Max is a co-founder of J Combinator, a Jewish Community space for people in the tech and startup ecosystem. J Combinator’s mission is to support community members to join or succeed in the startup ecosystem. J Combinator connects founders, operators, investors, and advisors with networks, jobs, mentoring, resources, events and more. J Combinator harnesses the successful entrepreneurial leaders in our community for the benefit of emerging leaders and those entering the space, supporting these people to solve their most critical professional challenges and increase their odds of success. Since its founding in 2022, Max has built J Combinator into one of the Jewish community’s most impactful emerging volunteer initiatives, with over 350 engaged members across Australia. J Combinator has facilitated numerous events, giving hundreds of people the opportunity to network and learn from leading entrepreneurs, and its community forum has materially supported dozens of individuals and companies in the Jewish community, supporting with finding jobs, hiring talent, connecting mentors, investors, or co-founders, or answering difficult questions. J Combinator aspires to provide opportunities for young Jews, a cohort at high risk of disengagement, to engage with the community through authentic, interest-based, and genuinely supportive offerings tied to their careers and interests. In addition, with the burden of community philanthropy falling on too few, J Combinator is also supporting the community’s donors of the future, helping entrepreneurs and inculcating a ‘pay it forward’ culture whereby we expect future generations of successful entrepreneurs to give back to J Combinator and the Jewish Community at large. Max is currently professionalising J Combinator, introducing and chairing a leadership committee of 10 highly capable volunteers with a strong mix of professional backgrounds and histories of community involvement, to support aspirations for ever-greater impact for J Combinator in the future through additional community infrastructure, programs, and event formats. Professionally, Max is a well-regarded startup operator and investor, and he also has an extensive history of community volunteering in addition to J Combinator. He is currently involved with the JCA’s Jumpstart Committee and is a Board Observer at The Emmanuel School via The Observership Program. In addition, he is a mentor to young LGBT+ professionals via Out for Australia, and has been involved in volunteer initiatives across disability, sport, health, and education, including with Flying Fox, Maccabi Australia, VTextbook, Magen David Adom, and Neve Michael. He is an advocate for diversity, philanthropy, and the strengthening of Australia’s technology ecosystem given the ability of startups to address global challenges. Max is an incredible young adult who “walks the walk” – he role models attributes of strong leadership for our future generation. Max has almost single-handedly built J Combinator and has done so on a purely volunteer basis. Max has managed to engage over 350 Jewish professionals through the J Combinator Slack group and has helped people build their careers, source jobs and become connected to the Jewish community through this group and adjacent events. I am privileged to work with and advise someone of Max’s calibre and I strongly believe that he is one of the best future leaders we have. |