From beer to Barclays, Azriel Chelst is strategizing behind the scenes and netting partnerships with a Torah mindset

Azriel Chelst started his business training before he even hit first grade.

In his role as vice president of innovation partnerships at Barclays, he works on strategy, which is ultimately about how to better engage various audiences — whether they are employees, clients, investors, or startups — to drive innovation. “My love for the role centers around my ability to work on large-scale, complex problems while supporting a multinational corporation,” Chelst says.

He explains that there are three stages to a good partnership — figuring out what you want to do, negotiating with someone to do it, and finally, delivering the product and/or service. “My day is divided between those three core activities,” he shares.

After spending time speaking with Chelst, it’s apparent that his humble demeanor, willingness to learn, and ability to be forward-thinking have made him a valuable player within the tech space; he’s one who understands that there is often more out there than meets the eye. He carefully considers every detail and takes the initiative to make things happen.

QUIET MANEUVERS

The skills he’s honed over his years in the corporate world, Chelst says, were originally cultivated by his parents. His father, Rabbi Dr. Ken Chelst, a musmach of Yeshiva University, is a professor of applied mathematics, and his mother, Dr. Tamy Chelst, is an audiologist who works with the elderly. Chelst was impacted by his mother’s kindness and guidance, and his father’s creativity and problem-solving abilities.

As a child, he traveled around the world with his parents. “Whenever my father was on sabbatical or had a business conference, he took us with him,” Chelst explains. When his father taught at Yale, MIT, and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, the family moved with him, giving them the opportunity to explore different communities and lifestyles.

“He let us tag along on trips to Greece, Scotland, South Korea, and Japan, and sent my brother and me on a backpacking trip through Switzerland when I was just 13 years old,” Chelst says. Hearing about these childhood experiences, it’s easy to see how he developed his aptitude to facilitate complex solutions across the world.

Chelst remembers the deep impact left on him when his mother told him the story of Moshe Rabbeinu seeing an Egyptian assaulting a Jewish slave. “Moshe looked everywhere but didn’t see anyone stepping in to protect the slave. I learned from that that I should look for opportunities to help where other people aren’t.”

This is a practice Chelst has been applying since his early days studying at Yeshiva University. Back in 2003, building an eiruv was a sensitive topic in the Washington Heights area. Chelst was determined to take on the challenge and include the entire neighborhood across Amsterdam Avenue. He worked with YU’s rosh yeshivah and other members of the YU team, as well as departments in New York City to rectify the problem. “Through creating the YU eiruv” — which follows the halachic guidance of Rav Hershel Schachter — “I learned how to maneuver within an organization quietly to get things done,” he shares. “Sometimes people like to make a big splash, yet the hard things often need fewer people and less noise.”