Igal Brightman: a master strategist and a friend of India from Israel

In the spring of 2007, I went to study the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Harvard Business School (HBS) in Boston. There I met Danny Halutz. I used to wake up pretty early. Before breakfast, Danny, my Living Group member Yudi (who was also from Israel) and I used to walk to Harvard Square and have coffee at Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Danny used to be accompanied by two tall, swarthy, and well-built armed body guards. Yudi told me they were Mossad agents and Ethiopian Jews. I realized that Danny was some sort of a VIP but I never asked him what he did.
AMP is a very rigorous 14 hours- a-day program and it is fondly called “monastic scholastics”. Although my son and sister were both in Boston at the time, I hardly managed to meet them except on Sundays when my son usually came over to Harvard Square. On one of these Sunday evenings, I told him that I had met an interesting person called Danny Halutz and mentioned his Mossad body-guards.
Typically, an AMP student does not have the time to read local newspapers or watch TV. We would, at best, browse headlines on the internet. After a couple of days, my son called me early in the morning and asked me if I had read the Boston Globe. I had not. He said, “There is a prominent news item saying that there will be a protest by a group of activists in Harvard Square against a war criminal called Danny Halutz who was allegedly ensconced in the Harvard Business School. My son put it to me diplomatically and chose polite words but essentially this was his message, “You may not be an important target for these angry people but if they target Danny, you could be a collateral damage.”
I told Danny it was not safe to go to Harvard Square now and we should have the morning coffee at the Spangler Centre inside the HBS campus. I asked Danny what this fuss was about. Danny then revealed that until January 2007 he was the head of the entire Israeli military. He was originally from the Air Force and in the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006 he had orchestrated heavy aerial bombings of Hezbollah positions in Lebanon. The protestors had a different version of the story. Regardless, Yudi, Danny and I remain friends to this day. But the central character of this moveable feast is not Danny.
After completing the AMP, I returned to India. In July 2007 I quit PricewaterhouseCoopers to join Deloitte Consulting as their India leader. I was also invited to be a member of Deloitte Consulting’s Global leadership team. In one of the global meetings, I met the CEO of Deloitte’s Israel firm: Igal Brightman. Igal was a charismatic leader and brilliant strategist. When I told him I was a friend of Danny Halutz, we bonded very quickly. He said, “Danny’s friend is my friend too.”
In addition to being the CEO of Deloitte’s Israel firm, Igal was also the global Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) leader of Deloitte. I was then trying to build the consulting brand of Deloitte which was in the process of unifying five different firms. While the global brand of Deloitte’s consulting brand was the best in the Big 4, in 2007 the consulting brand in India was somewhat weak.
We were trying to position ourselves as the thought leader in consulting through a set of carefully planned initiatives. One such important initiative was to present a series of Technology Prediction seminars where we would bring brilliant speakers from the global Deloitte family to speak about the emerging technologies that would disrupt business.
I invited Igal Brightman, Jolyon Barker and a number of other Deloitte global experts to come and speak to Indian CEOs and senior business executives. Igal not only readily accepted the invitation, he used his global clout and budget to bring in the best speakers from around the world.
At one of these events in 2010 at Delhi, I invited Som Mittal, then President of Nasscom to deliver the keynote address. I knew Som well. He was the one who had inducted me into the Executive Council (EC) of Nasscom (The EC is the Board of Directors in Nasscom.)
After the formal event, over cocktails and dinner I introduced Igal to Som. Igal made an unusual proposal to Som. He said Israel was the bee-hive of innovations. IT leaders of India were under-exposed to Israel’s technology and innovation industry. He proposed, “Please come to Israel. I will make all the arrangements. I will take the EC members to meet our Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and key business leaders.”
It was at his initiative that the first EC meeting of Nasscom was held in Jerusalem and,in my opinion, it was the single most important event at the time which exposed the IT leaders of India to the innovation eco-system of Israel. Igal was extremely well connected in Israel and pulled out all the stops for Nasscom.
Then we organized a Predictions event in Calcutta at which Igal spoke. He knew of the historical links of the Jewish people with the city. I took him to visit the synagogues of Calcutta. The Jewish people no longer live in the city. They have left for Israel and other countries. The services of the Magen David Synagogue have long stopped because there is no Rabbi. Yet the interiors are still remarkably well-preserved. The chequered marble floor, the ornate chandeliers, the stained glass windows and the floral pillars shipped from Paris are still there as a witness of better times. The altar of the Magen David Synagogue is crowned with a half-dome studded with stars. It represents the heaven. The large plaque in the middle contains the “Ten Commandments.” It also contains several other Hebrew inscriptions and the seven branched lamp stand of Menorah. Igal Brightman wept in the synagogue as he knelt down to pray all by himself in a language I did not understand.
I walked him through crowded streets of vendors and hawkers into the New Market amidst strange sounds and smells to Nahoum & Sons, which was a confectionary established over a 100 years ago. The meeting with David Nahoum, the owner of the Nahoum & Sons, was an emotional one. David offered us tea and fruit-cakes and told Igal that he divided his time between India and Israel. While they were exchanging coordinates, Igal’s eyes were riveted on a wooden board on the wall which had a Jewish prayer written in Hebrew.
While returning, he received a call in the car from the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. They spoke in Hebrew, so I do not know what they talked about. But Igal shared a secret with me. Apparently, “Bibi” was fond of cigars as was Igal. But Bibi’s wife did not favour his smoking cigars inside the house, so Bibi dropped in at Igal’s place for an occasional Havana.
On Thursday, August 1, 2013 he was flying to Eilat when his plane crashed. The reasons why Igal Brightman, an experienced pilot, lost control of his light plane while approaching to land at Eilat airport late on a Thursday night still remains a mystery. There was some speculation that Igal, who was flying with two passengers, may have been caught in a sudden and powerful crosswind that caused him to lose control of the aircraft. India lost a good friend from Israel and Deloitte a master strategist.