Moshe Lichtman

Moshe Lichtman is an Israeli computer engineer, technology executive, inventor, and investor. During a 20-year career at Microsoft, he held senior leadership positions in the United States and Israel, including corporate vice president, head of MSN, president of Softimage, and executive roles in digital television. From 2006 to 2011, he led Microsoft's research and development operation in Israel, greatly expanded its workforce and capabilities, and helped secure Israel's place in the company's global innovation network.

His contribution to Israeli technology extends beyond the management of a multinational corporation. As a student, Lichtman co-authored one of the early Hebrew-language guides to the C programming language. He later helped connect Israeli startups and technologies with Microsoft, and after leaving the company he co-founded the growth investment firm IGP. His career has therefore touched several critical stages in the life of technology: teaching people how to program, developing products, building research institutions, integrating acquired companies, and supplying growing Israeli businesses with capital and strategic guidance.

From Phantom pilot to computer engineer

Lichtman served in the Israeli Air Force as a Phantom fighter pilot and took part in the First Lebanon War. This early period of military service preceded a career that would likewise demand technical fluency, disciplined decision-making, and the management of complex systems.

He studied in the Technion's Faculty of Electrical Engineering in a program combining electrical engineering and computer science, earning a degree in computer engineering in 1986. He later received a master's degree in business administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The combination of engineering and management became a defining feature of his work: he was concerned not only with creating technology, but also with building the organizations, products, and markets required to bring it to a large public.

Teaching programming in Hebrew

While studying at the Technion, Lichtman and fellow student Amit Resh wrote The Complete Guide to the C Language. It appeared when computer studies were not yet widespread in Israel and advanced technical material in Hebrew was limited. As one of the early Hebrew books in its field, it gave Israeli readers access to a programming language that became fundamental to software development and computer systems.

The book's significance was both practical and cultural. It helped develop professional computing vocabulary in Hebrew and enabled students and practitioners to approach a complex subject in their own language. Long before Lichtman became a global technology executive, he was already contributing to the knowledge infrastructure from which a generation of Israeli programmers could grow.

Two decades of global leadership at Microsoft

Lichtman joined Microsoft in 1991 and advanced through a series of senior positions. He became a vice president at the company's American headquarters and assumed responsibility for businesses at the center of major changes in computing: the expansion of the internet, the rise of online portals, and the convergence of software, television, and communications networks.

MSN, Softimage, and digital television

In 1999, Lichtman was appointed to lead MSN, Microsoft's internet services and portal business. Under his leadership, worldwide revenue grew by 400 percent and the user base expanded. MSN became a leading portal in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries, although it remained behind Yahoo and AOL in the United States. The results illustrate both the scale of his responsibility and his ability to manage an international consumer service while the internet was becoming a central communications platform.

Lichtman also served as president of Softimage, Microsoft's digital visual-content software subsidiary. He managed a Montreal development center built around a startup acquired by Microsoft and subsequently led the company's development center in Silicon Valley. These assignments gave him practical experience in a difficult aspect of corporate growth: preserving technical talent and integrating an acquired company's technology and staff into a global organization.

In Microsoft's digital television business, Lichtman was responsible for strategy and later for the development, marketing, and sales of product lines for cable television and internet protocol television, or IPTV. The work included deployment by major network operators around the world. It placed him at the intersection of software engineering, communications infrastructure, and media during a period when technology companies were attempting to reshape how entertainment and information reached the home.

Seven United States patents have been registered in Lichtman's name, reflecting his direct involvement in technological invention as well as business and organizational leadership.

Building Microsoft Research and Development in Israel

In April 2006, after 15 years in senior Microsoft positions, Lichtman returned to Israel with his family and became president of the company's Israeli research and development center. He initiated and established the R&D site in Herzliya while leading the broader Israeli operation alongside its existing site in Haifa. During his tenure, Israel became one of Microsoft's three strategic development centers outside the United States.

Within roughly two years, the two-site organization grew by about 400 percent. Expansion came through substantial recruitment as well as the acquisition of Israeli startups and the integration of their employees and technologies into Microsoft. By the time Lichtman left in 2011, the Herzliya and Haifa sites employed approximately 600 people. Beyond the number of jobs created, the center enabled Israeli engineers to develop products for international markets while remaining in Israel and working directly within the research network of one of the world's largest software companies.

Microsoft opened its new Herzliya R&D campus in May 2008 in the presence of then-CEO Steve Ballmer. Lichtman was deeply involved in establishing the campus, which gave the Israeli research operation a prominent institutional home and demonstrated the company's long-term commitment to local engineering.

Connecting Israeli startups with global markets

A central element of Lichtman's work was the creation of practical links between Microsoft's international organization and Israel's technology industry. During his leadership, he helped advance Microsoft's acquisition of seven Israeli companies in transactions valued collectively at hundreds of millions of dollars. A successful acquisition requires more than financing: employees must be retained, technologies must be incorporated into products, and a local team must find an effective role inside a multinational business. Lichtman's earlier experience with acquired development operations was especially relevant to this work.

He was also involved in Microsoft's collaboration with the Israeli company PrimeSense, whose depth-sensing technology formed the technological foundation of Kinect. The Kinect system allowed people to control games and applications through body movement rather than a conventional handheld controller. The collaboration offered a vivid example of Israeli engineering becoming part of a global consumer product and reaching users around the world.

In June 2011, Lichtman announced his departure from Microsoft after five years at the head of Israeli R&D and two decades with the company. He was succeeded by the center's chief technology officer, Yoram Yaacovi.

From angel investment to IGP

Lichtman began investing privately as an angel investor in the late 1990s. Over the years, he invested in dozens of startups; the available biographical record reports that at least 17 of those companies were acquired or went public. Angel investors can provide more than initial capital. An investor with Lichtman's operating experience can also advise founders on product strategy, management recruitment, international sales, and relationships with potential corporate partners.

In 2012, Lichtman and Haim Shani founded IGP to invest in and support Israeli technology companies at the growth stage. This is the demanding period after a business has demonstrated meaningful demand but must still build sales and operational systems, enter additional countries, and manage rapid expansion. According to the supplied record, IGP invested hundreds of millions of dollars in dozens of businesses with annual sales ranging from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The firm's growth-stage focus addressed a longstanding challenge in Israeli technology: enabling promising companies to continue expanding from Israel and become substantial international businesses rather than treating an early sale as their only viable route. Through IGP, Lichtman applied lessons acquired from scaling business units, operating in multiple markets, and connecting Israeli innovation with global commercial networks.

An influence on Israel's culture of innovation

Lichtman's career spans much of the development of Israel's modern technology sector. It began when foundational computer knowledge still had to be made accessible in Hebrew, continued through the rise of the internet and digital television, and entered a period when Israel became a major research base for multinational corporations and local investment firms began helping homegrown companies pursue global scale.

His influence is particularly visible in the structures he helped create for other people to succeed. A programming book gave readers a professional tool. Development centers gave engineers access to international work without leaving Israel. Acquisitions and partnerships opened global distribution channels for Israeli technologies. Growth investments supplied businesses with capital and guidance at the point when a promising invention had to become a resilient organization.

Why Moshe Lichtman's legacy belongs in Moreshet

Moshe Lichtman merits inclusion in Moreshet because his work records an important chapter in the technological heritage of the State of Israel. He helped make computing knowledge available in Hebrew, led global businesses at a major software company, built and expanded an Israeli research institution employing hundreds of professionals, and connected Israeli companies and inventions with international markets.

At Moreshet.com, his career belongs not merely as a story of individual advancement, but as an example of how engineering expertise, organizational leadership, and patient investment can strengthen institutions and create opportunities for others. His contribution can be found in products and patents, but also in the professional communities, companies, and development centers he helped build. That cumulative influence has supported Israel's emergence as a knowledge-producing society and a consequential participant in the global technology economy.