Dropbox appointed Yael Keren to Head of R&D Israel. As part of her new responsibilities, Keren will lead the Tel Aviv based research and development center, as well as joining Dropbox’s European executive team, and representing Israel at Dropbox global. Keren replaces outgoing Head of R&D, Jonathan Seroussi, who held the position for a relatively short period.

A new GM after a year and four months

Yael Keren joined Dropbox back in 2019 as Senior Product Design in Israel, and primarily worked on product and user experience. Keren has 17 years experience in the technology field, and before joining Dropbox, held positions at SAP, HP, IBM, and Clicktale. More recently she mentored startups at the Google for Start-ups accelerator program.

Keren is stepping into the role instead of Jonathan Seroussi, the former Head of Israel R&D at Dropbox, who only held the role for less than a year and a half. Just for comparison, Seroussi’s predecessor, Meir Morgenstern, ran the Israel R&D center for 5 years, after Dropbox acquired his company CloudOn. Seroussi, also an entrepreneur at heart, arrived at Dropbox after selling his startup - VisualTAU - to Autodesk and later managing its Tel Aviv R&D center for 4 years.

In a past interview with Geektime, Jonathan Seroussi said that the hybrid approach, which combines work from the office and home, is doomed to fail, and admits that the economics are a big reason for transitioning to fully a remote setup.

In response to the new appointment, Yael Keren said: “I’m excited to take on this role, and I bring with me insight and experience managing design and product teams, as well as forging global partnerships. I’m proud to say that more than ever before, the Tel Aviv based R&D center is playing a bigger role in global operations. The projects we’re working on at the Israeli R&D center are mission critical to the global Dropbox product and have a deep impact on the company’s global success.”