Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, will (most likely) be my last day at IBM.
After 8 years (and 22 days to be precise) at Big Blue, I will embark into a new journey.
When I started out at IBM, at 22 (spot a recurring # here?!), straight out of the army, I already knew a lot about the company (my dad was a 30 year IBM veteran), but little about how my career at IBM will look like, or what would I like to do when I’ll grow up. At 31, with 8 years experience at the largest IT company in the world, I believe I have an answer.
IBM truly is a great place to work in, regardless of what you hear/read on the outside. Over the past 8 years, I’ve worked with some 1,500 people (1/3 of them are at my IM buddy list) under 6 local managers (and 6 European/US managers), held 4 different jobs at 2 departments, worked out of 2 HQ buildings, got my B.A in Finance and MBA in Marketing, graduated (with Distinction) IBM Global Sales School and built an impressive network of friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company.
Summarizing my time at IBM will take place at a different time, and post, but I’m happy to have had the opportunity to work with an amazing bunch of people, learning from the best and being part of a company that has an impressive past (which spans almost 100 years) and literally sets the future (PC, e-business, services and outsourcing, innovation, research, patents, SaaS and our planet) of the IT market.
Being responsible for Lotus Software Sales in Israel was the most challenging job I ever held, but at the same time the most interesting and fun. Fun – because I got to sell stuff I love, digg and totally believe in; challenging – because of the local market landscape and the competition. I believe we left a huge impact on the local market, strengthening the Lotus brand and helped our customers succeed – which is the most important thing. Working daily with our customers, solving business issues with Lotus solutions, was definitely the highlight of my work.
Through this post I would like to thank all the people – friends and colleagues, inside and outside the company – with whom I’ve worked over the years. THANK YOU! It was a pleasure knowing you and I do hope we’ll stay in touch.
I’m not a custom to linking songs in my posts, but there’s one song that comes to mind, to wrap up this goodbye post, and that is ‘My Way’, by Mr. Frank Sinatra.
Shalom, and see you around.
Good luck in the future!
Will miss you there, who will get IBM Israel updates from in the future?
Better yet who will fill your role?
Let me know where you go and how to find you.
It’s a shame but we all must leave the next sometime.
Wow, big news Dvir. Best of luck on what comes next. Hanging out with you last year was one of the highlights of my career. Seriously, I’ll never forget my week with you, and the hospitality you showed me. I only hope I can repay the favour one day. Congrats, and good luck.
Your brother overseas… Alan
Waaaaaaah!
You’ll be missed. But will be following your adventures with interest!
Good luck brother. We will definitely remain in touch. If you are ever up in Toronto, you have to give me a shout!
– Bilal
Good luck man
Thank you all for those kinds words!!
It warms my heart to know I have such great friends :-))
Alot of luck
Best of luck! Keep us posted…
I wish you lots of luck, it’s been a real pleasure working with you and always interesting to talk to you re the realy “cool” and un-boring stuff 🙂 of IT
I’m sure we’ll still talk, after all, we’re practically neighbors
Please keep us updated, take care and good luck!!
Einat (and all your friends at STKI)
Einat, thank you for those kind words! Always a pleasure hearing positive feedback from people I worked with.
I’m sure we’ll talk soon.. 😉
Ravidor – thanks!
Hi Dvir!
I just saw this entry in my Dogear news feed! I can’t believe it. Though, we never worked face-to-face, it was great it was great collaborating with you virtually.
I’ll miss all your status updates from IBM/Lotus Israel.
Good luck on your new endeavor!
Thank you Luis !
Reading your posts about Connections and hacking Connections was a great ‘time-off’ for me. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet, someday.. 😉
See you online.
Woahhh, good luck – I know you’ll excel where ever and what ever.
Thank you Kamie !!
I’m sure we’ll get a chance to climb one of these days… 😉