Yael Leibovitz Tannenbaum
Diversity programmes routinely fail at the recruitment interface. Interview panels filter for cultural fit while believing they are filtering for capability, and the candidates with the most to offer often present in ways the panel is not trained to read. The cost is paid in vacancies left unfilled and in talent pools the organisation never reaches.
Yael Leibovitz Tannenbaum is a career consultant and diversity practitioner who helps organisations rebuild their hiring processes so they reach talent pools their current interviews systematically miss.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Yael Leibovitz Tannenbaum
- She has spent two decades inside the hiring rooms of financial and technology organisations, so her recommendations target the specific points where bias enters a recruitment process.
- Her work with Mekorot’s Committee for the Advancement of Women and Haredi Women In Tech gives her a track record on one of the harder workforce integration problems: bringing ultra-Orthodox women into mainstream Israeli technology employment.
- Co-developed “The Double-Glass Ceiling” with Chani Zisman, a talk delivered at the European Parliament that translates the secular and ultra-Orthodox divide into terms a mixed audience can act on.
- Trains hiring managers in practical interview redesign, not abstract awareness, which means HR teams leave with changes they can put into a process the following week.
Biography highlights
- Twenty-plus years in HR and recruitment across financial services and technology
- Staff training delivery at SCE Shamoon College of Engineering
- Manager preparation programmes at Israel Electric Corporation
- Work with Mekorot’s Committee for the Advancement of Women
- Co-delivered talks at the European Parliament and the Women and Economy conference in India
- Active engagement with the Haredi Women In Tech community
Biography
Most diversity programmes are built around the wrong question. They ask how an organisation describes itself to candidates, when the harder question is how the organisation reads candidates in the room. Yael Leibovitz Tannenbaum has spent two decades on the inside of that problem, working with financial and technology employers whose recruitment processes were quietly filtering out the people they said they wanted to hire.
Her training is in HR and recruitment. Her practical reputation comes from a specific seam in Israeli workforce policy: bringing ultra-Orthodox women into secular technology and financial sector employment, where neither side of the table has been trained to read the other. Her work with Mekorot’s Committee for the Advancement of Women and with Haredi Women In Tech operates directly on that translation problem.
The signature output of this work is “The Double-Glass Ceiling,” co-developed with Chani Zisman and delivered at the European Parliament, the Women and Economy conference in India, and to the Prague Jewish community. The talk makes the secular-religious workplace divide legible to audiences who have no working knowledge of it, then identifies the specific decisions through which mixed teams either close the gap or reinforce it.
Alongside the keynote work, she trains hiring managers and HR teams in interview redesign and conscious decision-making. The format is closer to a workshop than a lecture, and the result is process change rather than a refreshed values statement.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusive recruitment and interview design
- Unconscious bias in hiring decisions
- Cross-cultural workforce integration
- Storytelling for career advancement
- Decision-making under organisational complexity
- Workforce participation of underrepresented groups
Ideal for
- CHROs and heads of talent acquisition reviewing hiring processes
- DEI leads designing programmes that survive the interview stage
- Hiring managers and interview panels in technology and financial services
- Boards examining workforce participation across underrepresented communities
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of where bias enters the recruitment funnel and which interventions actually move the numbers
- Practical interview tools that hiring managers can apply in the next round of recruitment
- A working understanding of the cultural and linguistic frictions that block integration of underrepresented groups
- Sharper instincts for the difference between cultural fit and capability when assessing candidates
Talks
Co-delivered with Chani Zisman, the talk maps the cultural and linguistic divide between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israeli society and translates it into workplace terms a mixed audience can act on.
Key takeaways:
- Where the secular-religious workplace divide actually shows up in hiring and team dynamics
- What integration looks like when both sides have to translate, not just one
- How organisations operating across this divide can stop relying on goodwill and start relying on process
A working session for recruitment teams, HR, and hiring managers, combining awareness with practical interview tools.
Key takeaways:
- Where bias enters a structured interview, and where it does not
- Specific interview prompts and rubrics that reduce filter-by-fit errors
- How to audit a recruitment process for the bias points it cannot see
A workshop on professional self-presentation, reframing candidate and employee narratives for clarity and credibility.
Key takeaways:
- The difference between a CV story and a professional narrative that a panel remembers
- How to reframe non-linear careers so the value is legible to a hiring manager
- Practical drills for executives and candidates preparing for high-stakes conversations
A session on conscious choice-making under bias, narrative, and decision fatigue.
Key takeaways:
- The mechanics of decision fatigue in hiring and management contexts
- How organisational narratives quietly constrain individual choice
- Concrete techniques for slowing decisions where the stakes warrant it