Lucy leads AICC mission to Israel

THE first all-women Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC) mission to Israel is being led this week by Lucy Turnbull, Australia’s first lady and a respected company director in her own right.

Among the 36 participants are leading businesswomen Lisa Sonnabend, chief operating officer of Macquarie Capital; Belinda Hutchinson, chancellor of the University of Sydney; and Dr Annabelle Bennet, former justice of the Federal Court of Australia.

Alongside Turnbull, the trip is being led by AICC chairperson Jillian Segal.

“There is an enormous amount of interest in the business community here in learning what we can from the remarkable situation which exists today in Israel,” Segal said this week.“The country has reinvented itself as the start-up nation. It has more start-ups per head than the US. It is a small country of eight million people, the size of NSW, and everybody wants to be an entrepreneur.

“We have to learn to understand the ecosystem and what goes into making an innovation culture.”

Full story by Joshua Levi in the Australian Jewish News