Boaz Chalamish

Boaz Chalamish is a serial technology CEO and investor with more than 25 years of executive experience across leading Israeli and international software companies, concentrated in infrastructure and enterprise software, storage, and cybersecurity. He earned a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

His operating career includes a formative run at Mercury Interactive, where as Senior Vice President and General Manager he helped create the "business technology optimization" category and was part of scaling the company from startup to roughly $1 billion in annual revenue before its ~$4.5B acquisition by HP. He then served as Senior Vice President of Research and Development at HP Software, followed by an executive role at VMware, where as SVP and GM he led the company's cloud management and end-user computing businesses — including strategy, products, engineering, and delivery for those high-growth units.

In February 2016 Chalamish was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Clarizen, the enterprise collaborative work-management (project/portfolio management SaaS) company. In April 2020 he transitioned to Executive Chairman when Matt Zilli became CEO, and he remained Chairman through Clarizen's sale by owner K1 Investment Management to Planview, announced January 2021 and completed February 2021 (Planview's largest acquisition at the time).

Today Chalamish is a Venture Partner at Key1 Capital, an Israel-based technology-focused VC and private equity firm, where he sits alongside other venture partners including Eran Liron, Itzik Parnafes, Amikam Norkin, and Shimon Tsentsiper. He also invests and advises independently as an angel, drawing on his operating network from the "Mercury mafia" of Israeli enterprise-software alumni.

• Invests primarily in enterprise and infrastructure software — the domains he operated in as an executive (SaaS, cloud management, storage, cybersecurity, collaboration/work management).
• Backs Israeli and US technology startups, typically at seed / early stage as an angel, with growth-stage exposure through Key1 Capital.
• Bias toward founders building category-defining enterprise products — his own track record (creating the "business technology optimization" category at Mercury, scaling zero-to-$1B) signals a preference for teams that can define and dominate a market.
• Brings operator value-add: three decades of R&D, product, and go-to-market leadership at Mercury, HP, VMware, and Clarizen — described by peers as "the executor every executive needs in their network."