Hillel International — which oversees the Hillel chapters that serve students on more than 550 college campuses in the United States and in 56 countries worldwide — has chosen the Bay Area as the site for its first office outside of its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Expected to open this summer, the office will be helmed by Mimi Lee Kravetz, a new hire from Google who will serve as the organization’s first chief talent officer. She will be one of Hillel International’s top three staffers under Eric Fingerhut, the agency’s president and CEO.
The new office will allow Hillel to tap into the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the region, said Kravetz, 36. She wants to attract new staff members “who have some of the creativity and innovation and energy that comes from being in San Francisco and Silicon Valley,” and also keep talented staff from leaving.
Kravetz has worked at Google for six years, most recently as head of marketing for the human resources department. The plan is for her to launch the Bay Area office in August.
Her hiring is part of a Hillel five-year plan that includes talent building, improving student engagement and developing resources. Kravetz will oversee the “talent” at all individual Hillel chapters — not just the ones that serve 47 campuses in California — and one of her aims is to anchor each with a strong executive director.
A Judaic studies and international relations major at Tufts University who has an MBA from Harvard Business School, Kravetz started her career at Hillel on the Stanford University campus. For three years she worked as a fellow in the Jewish Campus Services Corps, a Hillel program that was discontinued seven years ago.
At Google, Kravetz managed Google.com/careers, which helped attract top talent to join and stay, and launched re:Work, an initiative aimed at advancing the dialogue about the changing nature of work in the 21st century. Her efforts are the subject of a new book by a Google executive titled “Work Rules!”
“Hillel International is committed to bringing in dedicated professionals who inspire students to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel,” Fingerhut said in a news release. “Mimi Kravetz has proven through her time at Google and her commitment to the Jewish community that she is the right person to lead the effort to recruit, train and grow those professionals.”
Kravetz lives with her family in San Mateo; her two young children attend preschool at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center in Foster City.
“Hillel is doing essential work, inspiring Jewish students to live meaningful lives,” Kravetz said in a news release. “We need to attract more top professionals to do this work, build a culture that drives them to stay, and give them the freedom, support, knowledge and tools to advance this important goal. I couldn’t be more excited to be tasked with this critical challenge.”