Michael Goldberg didn’t speak the local language when he signed on to teach English in rural South Africa. Or when he set out to give AOL a foothold in China. But one of his keys to success is recognizing what he doesn’t know, finding someone who can help and moving ahead.
“I’m passionate about and energized by doing work overseas,” Goldberg says. “When you’re dropped upside down into a situation, and it’s chaos, for some people, that’s the most frightening thing in the world. And for some people, that’s the most exciting thing.”
The Bridge Portfolio
Bridge has invested in four Israeli medical companies, three of which have Cleveland connections.
» IceCure Medical
This company’s minimally invasive cryoablation freezes and destroys breast tumors. Bridge has invested more than $1 million in the company, which, this May, announced plans to make Cleveland its U.S. base. It now has an office in the Cleveland Clinic’s Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center. IceCure has a dozen employees in Israel and two here, but it could create up to 13 more positions.
» EarlySense
This medical system vendor chose Boston over Cleveland for its U.S. headquarters. But the company will collaborate with the Cleveland Clinic in a study to prevent heart-failure patients from needing readmission into hospitals.
» Navotek
Bridge was part of a $5 million investment in this intra-body tracking- and monitoring-technology company. Its clinical adviser, Roger Macklis, is a radiation oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
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Goldberg, 41, a native Clevelander, launched the Bridge Investment Fund in 2005. The locally based venture capital firm invests in Israeli medical device companies — and tries to recruit them to work in Cleveland.
Today, Goldberg is a managing partner of the nearly $10 million fund. He and his Israel-based counterpart, Avshalom Horan, identify potentially strong companies such as IceCure and solicit investors. He also teaches entrepreneurial finance at Case Western Reserve University. “For professionals looking in health care, there are so many opportunities [here], from the lowest entry-level jobs up to starting companies,” he says.
After graduating from Princeton, where he was twice elected class president, Goldberg moved to South Africa to work with Worldteach Inc., which placed teachers in rural high schools. When South Africa abolished apartheid and began preparing for its first multiracial elections, the nonprofit National Democratic Institute recruited him to teach the basic concepts of democracy and voting to black South Africans, who had been excluded from both.
“It was an exciting time,” he reflects. “I was so immersed in the work; I had a harder time deciding to come home.”
Back in America, Goldberg earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a master’s in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. A Microsoft internship led to a job offer at AOL, where he spent the next few years as director of new market development. He led the company into China, only to see his efforts aborted by AOL’s declining fortunes.
“I hired a team, built a local staff,” he recalls. “We were building a help center and software client, doing business development deals. We started a $200 million joint venture. We announced it, but it never launched. AOL’s domestic business was struggling, and the new-market efforts were the first to go.”
China is part of his past, but it may be part of his future: He recently spent a week in Beijing, meeting with venture capital funds about potential collaborations and sniffing out market expansion opportunities for Bridge’s portfolio companies.
“[Goldberg’s] background is not typical of venture capital, but he’s a very quick learner,” says Bill Schecter, a former chairman and president of National City Equity Partners who now sits on the Bridge board. “He’s a very good listener. He’s very good at seeking people out and taking their advice. He’s a very likable, intelligent guy.”
He also has a gift for making people like Cleveland. Bridge is helping to turn the city into a destination for more international health care talent.
“It’s a high-level, pretty vibrant sector,” says Goldberg. “We are ultimately complementing or supplementing the pool of companies that are here. We’re bringing new ideas and technologies from Israel, which is a hotbed of technology. If you marry new and innovative technology with leading clinicians and management talent, you’re providing the missing piece.”