Hi,

My name is Yotam Gutman, age 39, a husband to an incredible wife and a father to two daughters, aged 5 and 2.

I've recently left my corporate job and started freelancing as a marketing and business development consultant to startups.

(for my full professional bio please check https://www.linkedin.com/in/yotamgutman . this section is meant more as an overview of my life and career to date).

I live and work in Tel Aviv, Israel, and love to surf whenever I can ( that doesn't happen too often though, since I'm always too busy).

I was born in 1978 in a small kibbutz ( that's a communal form of living, native to Israel and now mostly extinct) in Northern Israel, and moved to an ordinary town when I was five, along with my parents and my sister. I was raised by two incredible parents, and although we were never rich (much closer to poor, actually), I've had a fantastic childhood with nothing missing. I've always loved the ocean and started surfing when I was ten years old and windsurfing when I was elven, and never stopped since. I've had a pretty normal adolescence , and spend my time between high school, the beach and guitar lessons. My Career started at the Israeli Navy which I've joined as a Cadet at the age of 18 and graduated as a Lieutenant after six and a half years. During this period I've met a beautiful lady and we've started dating, and we've been going on ever since…So you can say I've at least one good thing during my service ( I've met her at the naval training base, courted her with persistency and never let go ).

Following my military service I've travelled for several months and started learning history at the Tel Aviv university, and in parallel started working for a small firm providing technical writing and instruction services to prominent defense manufacturers. I've worked and travelled the world on duty (while studying, which often proved an exhausting juggling act) as head instructor of maritime and command and controls systems (traveling to Singapore, US, Czech republic and Australia), until I graduated from my history studies Cum Laude. I then moved to a more technical role in a medium company who developed simulators tor, and then I've had the good fortune of moving to an international company (who's had a large establishment in Israel) to work in presale and marketing roles. My job took me to interesting places like India, China, US, Thailand, Brazil, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and more. After traveling extensively for about 4 years, and after the birth of my first daughter I needed to slow down so moved to a smaller company selling intelligence services to manage its global sales operation. During my tenure we've developed an interesting offering which dealt with cyber intelligence. It somehow turned into a near spin-off, where I was managing all sales and marketing activities. This period has been incredibly intensive and rewarding, but due to lack of funds I was let go towards the end of 2014, and forced to find another employee. I since then worked at another cyber company  I but it never felt right so I've left after a year to start my own consulting business. I now juggle between working in an intense startup environment, parenthood and writing this blog.

I invite you to join me for the ride.

yours,

Yotam