Most executives spend decades orbiting in high-rise boardrooms, thumbing through PowerPoint decks and burning through quarterly earnings calls. A few snap their laptop shut, grab a backpack, and pour everything they learned into hungry younger firms. Eyal did just that, swapping corner-office polish for the raw energy of startups. His pivot proves that even the steeliest quarterback can still reinvent the playbook.
From Corporate to Consulting
Fifteen years pushed pencils on enterprise spreadsheets, drawn-out strategy sessions that stretched past dinner, and more off-site retreats than Eyal can count. He memorized the rhythms of an industry titan-metrics, market share, and the the arcane art of hedging investor panic.
Eventually, the fade-out of routine nudged him toward something fresh. Contributing big-game wisdom to small crews, hunting for break-out ideas rather than polishing quarterly reports, sounded more like fun and less like duty.
The resignation email landed, and the desktop artist opened the browser tab labeled freelance. Now one day with a SaaS upstart, the next in a co-working loft counseling a non-profit. Perks and pitfalls of consulting rolled in together, but so did the rush of watching businesses move from whiteboard to revenue in real time.
Bringing Big Ideas to Small Teams
Big ideas still fit on a small whiteboard if you sketch them right. Eyal, who spends most of his days consulting, tilts the board toward hungry start-ups and shows them what next week could look like. He pulls together the bits-and-pieces experience he collected at bigger firms and hands them three loose lessons: watch your cash, tidy your marketing copy, and let the numbers speak louder than gut feel. One online retailer once tripped over sky-high shipping bills and barely-there profit; after running plain unit-economics math with Eyal, founders spotted how each sale gnawed at their wallet and quietly tweaked prices. Within a quarter the same shop texted back with, hey, our books finally look green.
Numbers can hide beneath buttons, too. Eyal once turned a tech-client site inside out by peeping at Google Analytics; he marked the exits in day-glo fashion and asked, why did they quit here? A fresh button shape, punchier words, and a few less Flash widgets pushed the conversion needle forward nearly 40 percent. Small scoreboard, huge story.
Leadership That Listens
Corporate pecking orders paint decisions in stark black and white; start-up culture lets a thousand greys bloom. Eyal learned to keep his mouth shut for a full five seconds, an eternity in the glossy boardroom, and let speed-of-light teams volley their raw thoughts. Asking what makes sense to them is easier than pretelling them what will happen. The habit stuck, even in the next mega-firm gig; agile ears now earn repeat calls long after the charts disperse.
Instead of crafting lengthy reports or filing polished plans, he now passes along sharp, candid insights in five-minute chats. Startups rarely ask for grand rhetoric; they ask for moves they can make by lunchtime. In short, Eyal spends far more time coaching than managing and prefers it that way.
From Expert to Partner
These days Eyal bounces between a retail warehouse, a fintech launch pad, and a late-night dev den. He’s no longer the platitude-spouting guru; he signs on as a sweat-equity partner, shoulder-to-shoulder while the code compiles. His arc proves leadership isnt the corner office or the glittering title; its being the person who shows up and makes the next step clearer.
Final Thoughts
The shift from boardroom impresario to daylight-hours startup hand is exactly how consulting evolves in a digital-first age. By trading PowerPoint for coffee-stained whiteboards, advisers like Eyal plant proven street-smarts inside small teams. In the process they, too, grow leaner, nimbler, and unexpectedly knitted into a city-wide web of entrepreneurs.