The 5min Blog

Ran Harnevo, Co-Founder & CEO

Ran is a former journalist, news editor and project manager. He’s a blogger, an internet addict, and the one who has to deal with money issues around here.

As a former professional traveler (India, Tibet, Guatemala, etc…), Ran’s vision for 5min is making it big in East Asia, and moving the company to a nice remote island with a great Wi-Fi connection.

Tal Simantov, Co-Founder & CMO

Tal came up with the 5min concept together with Ran as a way to put online video to good use. He’s a former lawyer, who found practicing law boring (quelle surprise!) and substituted it with the advertising world. He was a creative director, and worked as a strategic planner and a marketing consultant at McCann-Erickson.

As 5min’s Chief Marketing Officer Tal is responsible for spreading the 5min idea and keeping the knowledge flowing.

Tal claims he’s a gourmet food connoisseur and chef. We’re still waiting to put his cooking skills to the test.

Hanan Laschover, Co-Founder & CTO

Hanan left the high-rolling life of an 888.com team leader to join Ran and Tal as 5min’s co-founder. As a programming artiste, he led cross-organizational projects at 888.com – the first online casino and one of the most successful gaming websites.

He’s fluent in 4 languages (not including programming languages), and for all you ladies out there, sorry to disappoint you, but Hanan is a newlywed (who hasn’t cut his hair since his wedding).

Richard Bloom, VP Business Development

As Vice President of Business Development, Richard is responsible for biz-dev and acquisition ventures at 5min. Prior to joining 5min, Rich served as VP of Business Development and Legal Affairs at UGO Networks, a subsidiary of Hearst. Rich started his career as an attorney with a couple of large firms in NY, where his practice focused on media and entertainment law. When he’s away from the office, Richard keeps busy raising extremely cute twins at home. .

Sharon Peleg, VP Product Management

In search of the perfect sunset, Sharon’s mission is to serve and protect all things 5min. When in the office, her roaring (and infectious) laughter can be heard throughout the halls, no matter what. When away from the office, Sharon can be found reclaiming her zen with yoga or catching a breathtaking dance show in one of the city’s many venues.

Evan Schreiber, Director of Business Develoment

An NYU alum, Evan was the first to join 5min’s New York offices. Along with Rich, Evan is behind the steering wheel of everything biz-dev at 5min. A one-man powerhouse despite his tender age, Evan secretly dreams of retreating to the Alaskan outback with a pair of skis.

Ealeal Ginott, Director of Content

Ealeal attends to all things content at 5min.com, serving as your friendly neighborhood content sheriff. Moonlighting as a rock journalist, she almost managed to hide her geeky disposition from the masses until joining the 5min bandwagon. Currently, she is seriously considering hiring someone else to manage her profiles on every social network for her, so that she may use this precious time to improve her Guitar Hero skills…Any takers?

Benny Shoham, Semantic Web Architect & Resident Doctor

After 10 years of programming and managing development processes, and 3 years of practicing Chinese medicine, Benny is the one who says that bugs are like diseases and fixing software is just like treating people: “All you need is love, love, love, love, love, love”.

Oren Stern, Online Marketing Manager

As the Online Marketing Manager at 5min, Oren is always with his ear to the ground, and will usually know nearly everything before you do. An avid gadget-junkie, Oren was also the first 5min team member to see the future and hop on the iPhone bandwagon, eventually dragging the rest of us down with him. Despite his die-hard work ethic and serious demeanor, Oren also has a playful side he reserves for skiing vacations, hilarious viral vids and Rick-Rolling the rest of the office.

Yossi Shalem, Senior Web Developer

At 5min HQ, we suspect Yossi has hidden super-human powers. Otherwise, there’s just no other plausible explanation to his impressive ability to battle tech obstacles and bugs while being so patient and understanding when explaining how it all works to those of us not lucky enough to be a part of the R&D team. He can usually be seen arriving at the office on his super-neat folding bicycle, which also means he’s friendly to the environment – we told you he’s got to be a superhero!

Ofir Tam, Software Engineer

Ofir is our Ninja developer – silent but lethal. You won’t see him coming, and you won’t know he’s left. But he gets the work done and he takes no prisoners. In his little house in the woodlands he sits day and night, sharpening his c# syntax and reading design patterns.

Revital Elkayam, Video Editor

Revital, AKA Ray-V, serves as 5min’s in-house video whiz, exercising her Midas touch on incoming content and video productions while educating the rest of us on everything from codecs to post-production to video art installations. Under her alter-ego umbrella, Ray-V has made an international name for herself as a leading VJ on the international scene, having provided stunning video visuals for live gigs by the likes of Roots Manuva, Erykah Badu and De La Soul.

Nir Rockban, Programmer & Solution Wizard

When strange things happen to the tech-challenged, Nirro is there to wave his magic wand and make everything all better again. Despite the constant nagging on our part, he’s always armed with a smile and a potential practical joke to test on unsuspecting 5min team members. Nirro is also responsible for the rapid disappearance of Nutella from the 5min kitchen – he’s a shameless chocolate addict!

Roxana Rusowsky, Partners Relations Manager

Hailing from Chile, Roxana brings a much-needed breath of Latin flair and elegance to 5min. As Partners Relations Manager at 5min, Roxana handles all of 5min’s publishing partners with skill and grace, and is always the first to know of new, cool and interesting content pouring into 5min. A dedicated animal lover and lobbyist for animal rights, Roxy is a practicing vegetarian who puts PETA to shame. (We’d say her accent is adorable, but she’d kill us!)

Moshe Saraf, Community & Data Manager

A self-proclaimed “professional awesome guy”, Moshe is in charge of making order in the 5min community. As the one to greet most of your incoming videos, Moshe is a little like a club bouncer you don’t wanna mess with. A former law student and bartender, he is currently expanding his palette with boxing lessons and a brand new Xbox 360.

Shay Brog, Product QA

A recent university grad (currently working on yet ANOTHER degree), Shay is responsible for product QA at 5min, perfecting semantic capabilities and making sense of it all. A longtime blogger, movie buff and obsessive music fanatic (Oldskool rave, anyone?), Shay also displays an exemplary knowledge of obscure pop culture trivia.

Want to find out more? Drop us a line!