Rabbi Yitzchak Kesselman, a Lubavitcher Chossid living in Crown Heights, and the highest-ranking frum employee at Microsoft, has been promoted to Corporate Vice President of Messaging and Real-Time Analytics Platform at the tech giant. Kesselman, a specialist in enterprise software, leads Microsoft’s real-time data analytics sector through the company’s management product, Fabric.

Fabric, a tool designed to help even non-technical employees extract meaningful insights from massive datasets, has been hailed as a game-changer in the industry. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella underscored the software’s importance during the company’s annual conference in May, calling it a tool that will “fuel the next generation of AI services.”

Kesselman expressed his gratitude for the promotion in a LinkedIn post, acknowledging the teams and mentors who have supported him. “This journey has been nothing short of amazing,” he wrote. “It’s amazing to think that our team came together less than two years ago, given everything we’ve been able to achieve so far… The best part? We’re just getting started!”

In a 2023 interview with Globes, Kesselman remarked, “I have never seen any dissonance between my work and my faith… Every time we build technologies that really succeed in helping people, I am filled with a sense of meaning.”

Born in Riga, Latvia, Kesselman immigrated to Israel at age six and grew up in Ramla. He developed a passion for technology at a young age, becoming fascinated with computers and software in elementary school. His journey to authentic yiddishkeit began in high school in Tel Aviv. He enrolled in the pre-army Atuda academic program, studying computer science at Tel Aviv University while also learning Gemara and Chassidus in yeshiva. Following his graduation, he served as an officer in the IDF Intelligence Corps’ computing unit.

Kesselman was one of the first frum employees at Microsoft Israel and played a key role in integrating Charedi professionals into the company. His career in tech saw him hold leadership positions at Retalix, Google, and Microsoft, where he now oversees a division of 400 employees worldwide.

Kesselman has also been instrumental in fostering diversity at Microsoft, advocating for the hiring of frum professionals. “We invited candidates for job interviews whose dry data did not exactly match the common pattern of the average tech employee, and we saw that a high percentage of them passed the interviews and were accepted,” he said.

He stressed that standards were not lowered, but rather barriers were removed. “With the time and experience I have gained, I have learned that accepting the other does not come at the expense of professionalism, but the opposite.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)