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Rabbi Yitzhak Kesselman, a 40-year-old Chabad Hasid and Microsoft's most senior ultra-Orthodox engineer, has been promoted to corporate vice president (CVP) at the tech giant.
Kesselman specializes in enterprise software and leads Microsoft's "real-time data analytics" sector through a management product called Fabric. This software enables even non-technical employees to extract meaningful insights from massive datasets. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the product's significance at the company's conference in May, describing it as a tool that will "fuel the next generation of AI services."
Now based in New York, Kesselman is married with five children and was one of the first ultra-Orthodox employees at Microsoft's development center in Israel. Born in Riga, Latvia, to a secular family, he immigrated to Israel at age 6 with his academically educated parents and grew up in a mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood in Ramla. He attended high school in Tel Aviv and became religious during his teenage years.
Kesselman served in the IDF's technology unit as part of the academic reserve program. In a LinkedIn post, he shared: "In the mornings, I studied differential and integral calculus and data structures as part of the academic reserve, and in the evenings, I studied the Talmudic tractate Berakhot and Chabad teachings at the yeshiva."
After completing his military service, Kesselman worked as a development manager at the information systems company Retalix before joining Microsoft in 2013 as a product manager. In 2021, he left the company for a position at Google, relocating with his family to New York. Last year, he returned to Microsoft and was immediately appointed vice president of "real-time messaging and analytical platforms." From the company's New York headquarters, Kesselman now oversees a global team of 400 employees — many of whom are based at the Herzliya development center — and regularly travels to Israel as part of his role.
'We didn't lower the bar – just removed some barriers'
Recently, Kesselman also completed his rabbinical ordination studies in the U.S. while continuing his work at Microsoft. In Israel, he is recognized as an advocate for integrating ultra-Orthodox employees into the tech industry.
"We didn't lower the bar," he explains. "We just removed some of the barriers that stood in the way. Of course, there were challenges and stigmas along the way. Over the years, working for various companies in Israel and abroad, I've heard the phrase 'If only all religious people were like you' countless times. But the more we engage with people different from us, the more we realize how similar we all are.
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"I grew up in Ramla, in a neighborhood where everyone lived together — Jews and Arabs, secular and religious — and at my wedding, friends from the yeshiva, the army, the neighborhood and the university all danced together. These friendships have accompanied me throughout my life."
Kesselman notes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe himself was an electrical engineer and viewed scientific discoveries as part of preparing the world for a better, more refined future.
"I've never seen a conflict between my work and my faith," he says. "We have a purpose — to do acts of kindness in the world. Whenever we develop technologies that genuinely help people I feel a profound sense of meaning.
"That's also why I chose to pursue a managerial path after years as a developer. As a manager, you can have a tremendous impact on the experiences of the people working with you. I have the privilege of being their sounding board and helping them grow. Unlike technical tasks, this process takes a long time to bear fruit — but when it does, the sense of fulfillment is incredible."