At 65, after 14 years as CFO of Fresh Direct Produce and two rounds of selling the company to two private equity firms, Jozef Hubburmin retired. Most people would call it a chapter closed, but Jozef saw it as an opening.

He already held a BCom from the University of Toronto (1986), a CMA (1992), and a Chartered Director designation (2017), but never an MBA. A simple Google search for the best international MBA program that also integrated AI business applications led him to BGU’s International MBA, along with its Masterclass in Startups ,at the Yazamut 360° entrepreneurship centre. In November 2024, Jozef and his wife Valerie moved into the graduate student dormitory in Be’er Sheva, where Valerie stayed with him for the year.

Why BGU?

Jozef had the credentials and a lifetime of business experience. What he didn’t have was a direct connection to Israel’s business community, and that was exactly what he set out to build. His goal was to get to know Israeli companies and hoped to help expand trade between Israel and the Abraham Accords-signing countries, using both commercial and academic links to help facilitate peace, even in a difficult moment for that kind of work.

The classroom

Jozef graduated cum laude, in the top 10% of his class. He took courses like Accounting and Company Valuations, where he learned how to value companies using AI tools. The program also included an innovative course in Entrepreneurial Wisdom, taught by a visiting professor from Germany, that focused on the softer side of business. This included how to develop corporate teams and provide support to the local community, while successfully growing a company.

He studied under Professor Miki Malul, Dean of BGU’s Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business Management – a prominent economist whose research centres on economic development, labour markets and municipal growth in the Negev and who works closely with Be’er Sheva's municipal government to help shape the region’s economic future.

For Jozef, being a retiree in the room mattered. “If a boomer can learn and benefit, then academics will be even more beneficial for our younger generation,” he says. Gen Z and Millennials built the tools reshaping business today, but experience is what turn these technologies into results.

The people

Ask Jozef about his year at BGU, and the stories come quickly. Lior, a software engineering team manager who started his own company, “Echo Hear”, is innovating the hearing testing industry. Samuel, from Nigeria completing both his IMBA and a PhD in Engineering at the same time. Bella and Abai – Abai now works in research and development for a central bank in Kazakhstan – who got married there, with Jozef and Valeri in attendance. Benzie from Jerusalem and Frank from Colombia, who teamed up to build the FamLife app. And a number of Israelis serving in the IDF, including a commander of an engineering platoon, who completed his MBA while simultaneously serving in the military and clearing tunnels in Gaza.

Pitch nights

Unlike North American campuses, where sports and parties dominate, the biggest nights at Yazamut 360° happen at pitch nights in the Senate Hall, where students from every faculty compete in front of a room that often includes Israeli venture capitalists as judges. Jozef attended twelve pitch night events during the year. Given his background in the food industry, he judged the “Food Tech” competition, and he also gave a presentation to the student groups preparing their own pitches, covering customer concentration, business models, and marketing in the food industry. BGU is an exciting hotbed of extracurricular entrepreneurship with hackathons, pitch nights, and industry-specific business seminars.

Why it matters now

“Many university programs are becoming irrelevant because of AI. But entrepreneurship and creativity will not be replaced.” He goes on, “If you want to get a relevant education – one that goes beyond the degree, that is going to make them truly relevant – this is where you want to study.” He mentions the growing number of postgraduate students on campus from India and China as proof where things are headed. “BGU is the future.”

At 65, Jozef Hubburmin found a university that challenged him, connected him to a global network of ambitious, resilient people, and gave him a front-row seat to what he now calls the future. Supporting BGU means making sure that door stays open for the next student, ready to walk through it.