A founding gathering · Yafo · Helsinki · the Nordics
Nordic focus meets Israeli innovation.
The Israeli–Nordic Innovation & Leaders Forum is a co-created leadership hub for the people who already build bridges between Israel and the Nordics: CEOs, company leaders, chambers, embassies, investors and innovation platforms. Every event and gathering is shaped by the people who join.
Hosted and curated by Delevante Horizon — an advisory and leadership-development practice active across the Nordics and Israel.
The concept
A connector that reaches across the whole ecosystem.
Many organizations already work between Israel and the Nordics. Each has its own members and mandate. The Forum sits alongside them and links them up, so a founder can meet a trade officer, an investor can meet a chamber, and good ideas reach the people who can act on them.
CEOs & founders: Industrial CEOs, agritech and medtech founders, family-business successors
Tap a group to see who sits there.
CEOs & founders
Leaders who want a trusted counterpart on the other side, whether for a partnership, a pilot or a market entry.
Who sits here
- A Nordic industrial CEO looking for an Israeli R&D partner
- An Israeli founder opening a first office in Helsinki or Stockholm
- A second-generation leader taking on a cross-border venture
- Small and mid-sized firms in cleantech, industrial software and health
Every line runs both ways: Nordic leaders reach Israeli innovation, and Israeli leaders reach Nordic markets. Actual names are added as people confirm.
Why these two regions
Alike in ambition. Different in method. Stronger together.
What we share
01
Small home markets
Companies on both sides plan for export from the first day.
02
Lean and flat
Short decision lines, small teams, first names with the CEO.
03
Direct
People say what they think and expect the same back.
04
Serious about technology
High R&D spend, strong engineering, many founders per capita.
Where we differ and what it offers
Israel
Act first. Launch, learn in the market, fix on the way.
The Nordics
Plan first. Agree on the process, then execute with few surprises.
Together
Israeli speed finds the opportunity. Nordic process makes the result last.
Sample agenda · 2026–2027
A first twelve months, sketched together.
A sample agenda for the first year, written to be changed. The themes and rhythms are set; the places and dates are not. Most gatherings are expected in Israel, with a few further north — including a summer gathering by the water. Every one of them takes its final shape with the people who join, and settles as hosts and speakers confirm.
23–24 November 2026
Founding
Kickoff evening — Yafo
Yafo · Israel
A Nordic and Israeli networking evening at Beit Alayam, Yafo. Drinks and light food hosted by Delevante Horizon, dinner optional. Around 20 curated guests.
This is a draft to react to. Propose a different theme, offer a speaker or a host location, and the agenda bends around it.
Founding committee
A small group of leaders who help choose themes, hosts and guests in the early events. If you would like to be part of it, tell us.
Express interestCo-created hosting
Delevante Horizon hosts and curates. The hub is built with you.
Join the network
Take a place in the Leadership Network and the wider Forum community as it takes shape.
Sign up →Propose an agenda item
Bring a question, a theme or a challenge you believe the Forum should take on together.
Propose →Offer to host
Your company, an embassy or residence, or another place worth seeing. We are always glad of a new location to visit and to introduce through the network.
Make an offer →Tel Aviv is our preferred base for gatherings. Jerusalem and any other location that suits the Forum work just as well — tell us where you would like to meet.
Hosts & founding members
Four people, four vantage points.
Galith N
Co-founder · Delevante Horizon, since 2020
Over 20 years driving revenue, growth and digital transformation from early-stage ventures to global enterprises — spanning go-to-market strategy, C-level engagement and innovation across the Nordics and Europe. Founder of Delevante Horizon, supporting start-ups, artists and impact-driven founders in building sustainable go-to-market motion and revenue. Also the founder of International Working Women of Finland, a community of 11,000+ members.
Yaron N
Co-founder · Supply chain & sales leadership
Over a decade as a supply chain and sales leader — digitalizing supply chains and leading end-to-end transformation engagements. A native of Finland, Yaron also leads communities and networks that connect Finnish and Israeli business, building trust and harnessing individual talent to drive change.
Unni T
Founding member · Leadership performance
Norwegian author, speaker and executive performance advisor helping leaders out of survival mode. A former attorney, she has spent 15 years researching human behaviour and decision-making; her Creator Mode Method runs through private advisory, group programs and corporate workshops. She has spoken at Nordic Business Forum, EACD and LOGIN, and is the author of three books.
Avi M
Founding member · Legal & commercial advisor
Over two decades guiding complex commercial transactions, corporate structures and cross-border ventures — from early-stage companies to global enterprises — spanning strategic legal counsel, regulation and market entry across the Nordics, Europe and Israel. Deeply rooted in the Israeli business and legal ecosystem, Avi bridges jurisdictions to help international players navigate risk, build trust and unlock sustainable growth.
Galith has spent twenty years on revenue and go-to-market at companies from early stage to global scale, and founded both Delevante Horizon and International Working Women of Finland. Yaron runs supply chain and sales transformations and has spent a decade building the networks that connect Finnish and Israeli business. Unni, a Norwegian author and former attorney, has spent fifteen years on what makes people decide, and works with executives on how leaders perform when the pressure is on. Avi has spent two decades on the cross-border legal and commercial work — transactions, structures, market entry — that turns an introduction into an agreement.
Between them that covers the ground a cross-border move actually depends on: reaching a market, moving goods and people, keeping a leadership team steady, and getting the contract signed. The hosts are based in Finland and all four work between the Nordics and Israel, so neither side has to do business on someone else's home ground.
Founding members join from the start: they help choose themes, open their own networks and set the tone of the room before a gathering is announced.
Eight economies
Small countries, outsized reach.
Israel and the Nordic countries together count around 37 million people. Between them they hold some of the world's deepest pools of patient capital, its most active cyber and water tech scenes, and much of the know-how behind the energy transition. Put side by side, they cover each other's gaps.
- Israel
- Cyber, water and deep tech
- A world centre for cybersecurity founders and investment, a leader in desalination, drip irrigation and water reuse, and the highest R&D spend relative to GDP.
- Sweden
- Scale-ups and green industry
- One of Europe's highest counts of tech unicorns per person, with heavy industry moving fast on green steel, batteries and electrification.
- Norway
- Sovereign capital and ocean industry
- Home of the world's largest sovereign fund, and strong in maritime, offshore energy, carbon capture and ocean technology.
- Denmark
- Wind, life science and logistics
- Pioneer of offshore wind with more than half its power from wind, and a global force in pharma, biotech and shipping.
- Finland
- Clean tech, quantum and networks
- A long record in mobile networks, now building quantum computers and ranking among the leaders in clean tech innovation.
- Estonia
- Digital state and fast builders
- Nearly every public service online and Europe's highest number of unicorns per person.
- Iceland
- Geothermal energy and carbon removal
- All electricity renewable, most homes heated by geothermal, and early work on turning captured CO₂ into stone.
- Faroe Islands
- Aquaculture and ocean industry
- Salmon farming is the largest private industry, with a sophisticated shipping fleet and growing work in marine biotech and offshore energy.
Figures are rounded, from public sources.
On the table
The questions we start from.
- 01
Where are we already collaborating successfully?
- 02
Where are we duplicating efforts — or missing each other?
- 03
What would make the Nordic–Israel relationship substantially stronger over the next three years?
Themes we will take up across the events
Entering the other market
What really changes in the first eighteen months.
- Which partners, advisers and first customers matter most when a Nordic company sets up in Tel Aviv, or an Israeli company in Helsinki?
- What do founders wish they had known before hiring on the other side?
Capital and co-investment
Where two different systems of money meet.
- Where do Nordic and Israeli investors co-invest today, and where do they keep missing each other?
- What terms and timelines make a cross-border round work for both sides?
Public buyers and institutions
How ministries, agencies and cities become a first customer.
- Which public pilot on either side could realistically run within a year?
- Where could two countries fund one programme instead of each running their own?
Industry and deep tech
Where Nordic hardware meets Israeli software.
- Which pilot could a Nordic industrial company and an Israeli technology company run together next year?
- Where do energy, maritime, forestry and chemicals need data and sensors most?
Talent and leadership
How teams hold together when labour is scarce on both sides.
- How do companies in each region recruit, motivate and keep engineers and senior leaders?
- What does leadership look like when your counterpart works to a different rhythm?
Trust and reputation
How a name becomes known before the contract does.
- What signals credibility to a buyer on the other side in the first meeting?
- Who would introduce you to a customer, and what would make them do it?
Each theme can come back as a dinner conversation, a workshop, a company visit or a delegation stop. These are starting points: propose a question and it goes on the agenda for the next gathering.
Your reply
Kindly respond.
Choose what you would like: news about upcoming events, a seat at an event, a place on the waiting list, or a role on the founding committee. Every reply is read personally by the hosts.