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Yossi Vardi - International Technologies |
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Yossi Vardi is one of Israel's early entrepreneurs and has co-founded, lead, and participated in building over 60 high-tech companies.
Yossi co-pioneered instant messaging as the founding investor and the former Chairman of Mirabilis Ltd., the creator of the highly popular instant messaging program ICQ now sold to AOL. Yossi Vardi has an extensive government and public career, holding the position of Director General of the Ministry of Energy and Chairman of Israel's National Oil Company and Chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation.
Many of Yossi Vardi's investments have resulting in the company going public such as answers.com, Scopus, Granite, and Lasers with many being acquired. Yossi Vardi sits on the advisory boards of 3i and Amdocs and has served on boards of numerous state and private corporations including Bezeq, Israel Electric, and the Bank of Israel. He has also been an advisor to the CEO's of AOL, Amazon, and Allied Signal.
Yossi Vardi has received many awards, including the Prime Minister of Israel Hi-Tech award for life achievements on two occasions, the Industry prize, the Ramniceanu prize and C-E-O's Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame.
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Safra Catz - Oracle |
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Safra A. Catz has been President of Oracle Corporation since January 2004 and a member of the Board of Directors since October 2001. She served as Oracle’s Chief Financial Officer from November 2005 to September 2008, as Executive Vice President from November 1999 to January 2004, and as Senior Vice President from April 1999 to October 1999. In May 2008, Ms. Catz was also appointed to a three-year term as member of the board of directors for HSBC Holdings plc, one of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations.
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) provides the most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems in the world. For more information about Oracle, visit oracle.com
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Eli Harari - SanDisk |
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Eli Harari is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of SanDisk. Eli Harari has served as CEO of SanDisk since the company's founding in 1988, and has built SanDisk into the global leader in flash memory cards, with revenues of $3.57 billion in 2009. A pioneering leader in both technology and business, Eli Harari holds more than 100 U.S. and international patents in non-volatile semiconductor devices. Under Harari, SanDisk has grown into a major international retail brand, serving customers through more than 240,000 retail storefronts worldwide.
From 1973 to 1983, Harari held research and management positions with Hughes Microelectronics Ltd., Honeywell Inc. and Intel Corporation. In 1983, he founded Waferscale Integration Inc., serving as the company's president and chief executive officer until 1986 and as chairman and chief technical officer until 1988.
Along with SanDisk co-founders Sanjay Mehrotra and Jack Yuan, Harari received the 2006 Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In 2009 he received the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal recognizing his "leadership in the development and commercialization of flash memory technology."
Harari holds a Ph.D. in solid state sciences from Princeton University and a B.S. in physics with honors from Manchester University.
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Nikesh Arora - Google |
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As President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations, as well as marketing and partnerships. Since joining Google in 2004, he has held several positions with the company. Most recently, he led Google's global direct sales operations. He also developed and managed the company's operations in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets and was responsible for creating and expanding strategic partnerships in those regions for the benefit of Google's growing number of users and advertisers.
With a background as an analyst, Nikesh's main areas of focus have been consulting, IT, marketing and finance. Prior to joining Google, he was Chief Marketing Officer and a member of the management board at T-Mobile. While there, he spearheaded all product development, terminals, brand and marketing activities of T-Mobile Europe. In 1999, he started working with Deutsche Telekom and founded T-Motion PLC, a mobile multimedia subsidiary of T-Mobile International. Prior to joining Deutsche Telekom, Nikesh held management positions at Putnam Investments and Fidelity Investments in Boston.
Nikesh holds a Master's degree from Boston College and an MBA from Northeastern University, both of which were awarded with distinction. He also holds the CFA designation. In 1989, Nikesh graduated from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India, with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. As a business, Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page. This makes the advertising useful to you as well as to the advertiser placing it. Google believes you should know when someone has paid to put a message in front of you, so we always distinguish ads from the search results or other content on a page. Google doesn't sell placement in the search results themselves or allow people to pay for a higher ranking there.
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Moshe Lichtman - Microsoft Corp. |
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Moshe Lichtman is corporate vice president and president of Israeli R&D center for Microsoft, responsible for all technology activities in Israel, including the R&D centers in Haifa and Tel Aviv, new core R&D projects, and partnering with the local venture-capital community and academic institutions. In addition, he is a key leader driving strategy development for Microsoft entertainment-related projects in Europe. Until 2006, Lichtman served as corporate vice president of the Microsoft TV Division, where he was responsible for the development, marketing, sales and deployment of Microsoft's software solutions for the digital television industry worldwide.
Lichtman joined Microsoft in 1991 as a product manager in its Personal Systems Division. Since then he has held several marketing and management positions and led an industry-wide effort called Plug and Play to improve the design and usability of the PC. In 1995, Lichtman moved to Microsoft's Consumer Platforms Division and became president of Softimage, a Microsoft wholly owned subsidiary and a leading provider of digital media creation tools for the film, video, and interactive industries. Under Lichtman's leadership, Softimage spearheaded the deployment of powerful media creation tools on the Windows NT platform and released its groundbreaking Digital Studio product-line. Moshe was the key driver behind Microsoft's strategic partnership with Avid Technologies and its eventual acquisition of Softimage.
In 1998, Lichtman assumed the position of vice president of the Digital TV platform strategy, coordinating efforts across the Windows, Windows CE, WebTV and the interactive media group. In 1999, Moshe assumed responsibility for Microsoft's international Internet business, driving the broad adoption and profitability of MSN outside the U.S. Under Lichtman's leadership the MSN international business grew more than 400 percent in users and revenues and became the number one network in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several Asian countries.
Prior to Microsoft, Lichtman held software development and management positions in several high-tech companies. He is co-author of the "Complete Guide to the C Language." He holds a master's degree in business from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a computer engineering degree from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.
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Yossi Matias - Google |
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Yossi Matias is the managing director of Google Israel R&D Center, with overall responsibility for Google research, development, and technology innovation in Israel. Under his leadership, the Israeli center has developed visible and core technologies in the areas of Search, Data Analysis and visualization, Gmail, YouTube, and Internet scale infrastructure. Matias joined Google in 2006 to establish the Tel-Aviv R&D Center. Subsequently, he merged the Tel Aviv and Haifa centers into a single strategic Israel R&D center, which is part of Google's global Engineering organization. He is a member of the Google EMEA leadership team, and was also responsible for technology innovation in YouTube and Data Analytics in EMEA.
Prof. Matias is also on the CS faculty of Tel Aviv University (on leave), and previously a research scientist at Bell Laboratories and a visiting professor at Stanford. He earned his PhD (with distinction) from Tel Aviv University and his MSc (with excellence) from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Previously he served as an Israeli Air Force pilot.
Matias has authored over 100 scientific and technological research papers and is the inventor of over 20 patents, in the areas of data analysis, algorithms for massive data sets, data streams and synopses, parallel algorithms and systems, data compression, data and information management systems, security and privacy, video processing, and Internet technologies. He developed some of the early technologies on internet privacy and contextual search.
He is serving as Chair of the ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award committee, on the founding steering committee of the Israeli Academic Grid, and was a member of a national committee evaluating strategies for Grid technologies; he was a program commitee member and invited speaker in numerous conferences. He was a program co-chair of ICALP'09, the primary European Conference on Theoretical Computer Science.
Matias is a recipient of the 2005 ACM-EATCS Gödel prize in Computer Science "for the profound impact on the theory and practice of the analysis of data streams". His work was instrumental in setting up a scientific field of algorithmics for massive data sets, and technologies now extensively used in industries involving massive data sets. In 2009 he was elected an ACM Fellow.
Matias has been extensively involved over the years in the high tech industry in leadership roles as an entrepreneur and executive, in the areas of search technologies, internet privacy, database technologies and business intelligence.
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Bob Rosenschein - Answers.com |
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Bob Rosenschein is the chairman and CEO of Answers Corporation (NASDAQ: ANSW).
Bob has over thirty years of software development, marketing and management experience. He worked for Data General, American Management Systems and the World Bank before moving to Jerusalem, Israel.
Bob founded Accent Software in 1988 and Answers Corp. (formerly GuruNet) in 1998. He consulted to Microsoft on the design and implementation of Middle Eastern (Hebrew, Arabic) Windows.
Bob is a recipient of the Israeli Prime Minister's Award for Software Achievement. Bob was born in Harrisburg, PA, in 1953. He graduated from MIT with a B.Sc. in Computer Science in 1976.
Answers.com is your free "one-stop shop" with instant information on over 4 million topics. Answers.com delivers useful answers in a snap. Look up any word or phrase for the best definition or explanation on the Web. Not lists of links... just the information you're looking for.
Answers.com starts with 180 trusted titles from the most prestigious reference publishers, and adds a patented database technology, to give you the most comprehensive page available on a subject.
What else is in Answers.com? You'll also find original articles researched by Answers.com's in-house editorial team, community-contributed articles from Wikipedia, and user-generated questions & answers from Answers.com's industry-leading WikiAnswers (WikiAnswers.com). Because Answers.com compiles and unifies multiple sources for each topic onto a single page, you save time and get the information you need quickly.
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Ori Birnbaum - RayV |
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Ori Birnbaum is seasoned technology entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in online marketing and business development. As the co-founder of RayV, Ori's direct responsibilities include Business Development, Product Innovation and Strategy. Prior to RayV Ori held senior management positions ranging from a founding executive to a board member in companies such as Hotbar (acquired by Zango), Cellectivity, Interlogic, Giza, Betta Marketing and DC group. Ori relocated with his family three years ago from London to LA .
RayV is all about giving you the opportunity to create TV, from existing TV networks that wish to expand their offering in new territories to entrepreneurs with ideas for niche TV and live events. RayV provides a wall-to-wall turnkey solution which combines High Quality Live Streaming at a fraction of the cost of traditional broadcast with fully integrated creation, display and monetization tools.
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Yaacov Ben-Yaacov - Catch Media |
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Yaacov Ben-Yaacov is the CEO and Founder of Catch Media. Yaacov has over 20 years working in high technology companies. Yaacov co-founded PictureVision in 1994 to facilitate showing, moving, and printing pictures across a network. In 1998, Kodak bought PictureVision for approximately $200M.
Catch Media has developed software in its Israeli research facility to diversify the platforms on which media content is made available, such as computers, TVs and mobile phone. Catch Media™ creates convenience for the consumer while creating a profitable on-going revenue stream for content owners, carriers, and distributors.
Catch Media is based in Los Angeles and runs a research and development center in Jerusalem. The company's "Play Anywhere" technology is being developed to help surfers access digital information stored on their home computers - from regular files to movies and music - using a range of devices, such as cellphones and car media players. Users will also be able to share their files with friends. Catch Media's investors include Jonathan Medved, former manager of the Israel Seed venture capital fund.
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Avner Ronen - Boxee |
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Avner Ronen is the CEO and Founder of Boxee. Named one of Rolling Stone's "Agents of Change" for 2009, prior to boxee Ronen was the Head of Corporate Development and M&A for Comverse, Inc. a leading provider of software and service to Telecom service providers. Ronen was responsible for acquisitions valued at $450M, which were key to the company's evolution from a Voicemail company to a Billing and VAS provider.
Ronen joined Comverse in 2002 when they acquired Odigo, a company he co-founded in 1998. Odigo was one of the early Instant Messaging services on the web serving over8M users worldwide, and earned Ronen the 2002 honor of being a member of Crain's 40 under 40.
Prior to Odigo Ronen served for 4.5 years in the Israeli Defense Force in the special computer unit, MAMRAM.
Boxee is the first "social" media center, whose free, open source, downloadable software is changing the way consumers experience media. On a computer or connected to an HDTV, Boxee gives people a truly connected digital entertainment experience to enjoy movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Comedy Central, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr. Not only that, but you can share information about what you're watching with friends so they can find it legally and enjoy it too. You can even post things you like to social networks like Twitter, Last.FM, or Tumblr. All this from within a visually driven interface that makes media come to life.
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Adam Singolda - Taboola |
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As the chief executive officer of Taboola, Adam Singolda is leading the company business strategy, execution, and business development, while maintaining a unique company culture of competitiveness, quantitativeness, and innovation.
Prior to founding Taboola, Adam served as an officer in a mathematical elite unit in the Israeli National Security Agency (I-NSA) for almost seven years. Adam's focus in the unit was data-mining and "unsolvable problems." His background uniquely prepares him to lead Taboola's efforts toward technological advantage that focuses on scale and quantifiable value to publishers, advertisers and users.
Adam is an honored alum of the IDF's elite "Mamram" computer-science training program, and he finished first in his class in the officer's academy of the IDF.
Adam's vision for Taboola is to change the way people around the world discover the videos they like no matter where they are.
Taboola's mission is to change the way people discover and engage with interesting videos, no matter where they are around the world. Taboola is widely recognized as the world's fastest growing video discovery provider on the World Wide Web. Taboola's products are being used to generate video recommendations to over 51MM unique users, across a network of publishers that includes CNN.com, Slate, NBA.com, Kiplinger.com, eHow.com and more. Taboola was founded in 2007 by a team of veteran Israel National Security Agency (I-NSA) researchers with years of advanced practical mathematical research experience.
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David Schlacht - DirecTV |
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David Schlacht is Senior Director for Multimedia at DirecTV.
Each day, DirecTV subscribers enjoy access to over 265 channels of 100% digital picture and sound, exclusive programming and the most comprehensive collection of sports programming available anywhere, including NFL SUNDAY TICKET and MLB EXTRA INNINGS. DirecTV offers access to quality programming delivered to homes, airports, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, office buildings, airplanes, automobiles and portable electronics. DirecTV also leads the digital television technology revolution with exclusives such as NFL SUNDAY TICKET SuperFan, US Open Interactive and YES Network Interactive. DirecTV has the most HD channels - over 130 channels, all in High-Def, all the time.
Many of DirecTV's more than 16,000 employees operate the broadcast centers on the ground, monitor our satellites in space, and deliver industry-leading service and value. As an all-digital platform, DirecTV was the first to deliver an interactive on-screen program guide and Pay Per View ordering by remote control. DirecTV's innovations have led to six Emmy Awards and hundreds of filings for US patents for must-have technologies to the viewing experience.
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Yoav Nissan-Cohen - AMIMON |
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Dr. Yoav Nissan-Cohen's twenty-year career in the semiconductor industry has covered a wide range of activities in research, technology development and corporate management.
Dr. Nissan-Cohen was previously CEO of Tower Semiconductor, leading the company to advanced specialized technologies and to the construction of a $1.5B facility. Dr. Nissan-Cohen also took a leading role in the formation of Saifun Semiconductor where he still holds a position as special advisor.
Prior to that, he was Engineering Manager at National Semiconductor Israel, and a research scientist at General Electric research and development center in New York.
Dr. Nissan-Cohen received his Ph.D. Summa Cum Laude in Applied Physics from the Hebrew University and served as a jetfighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
AMIMON is a fabless semiconductor company pioneering wireless uncompressed high-definition video for universal connectivity among CE video devices. Its uncompressed Wireless High-definition Interface (WHDI) allows flat-panel televisions and multimedia projectors to wirelessly interface to all HDTV video sources at a quality equivalent to that achieved with wired interfaces such as component video, DVI and HDMI. Headquartered in Herzlia, Israel, AMIMON is a venture-backed startup with a management team comprised of leading experts in semiconductor, video and modem technology. The company also has offices in Santa Clara, California and Tokyo, Japan.
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Erez Shachar - Evergreen Venture Capital |
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Erez joined Evergreen in the beginning of 2004 as a managing partner. He focuses on Evergreen's investments in the Software, Internet and New Media sectors.
Erez joined Evergreen from NUR Macroprinters Ltd. (acquired by HP), where he served as CEO and President since 1997. Under his direction, NUR increased its revenues sevenfold by significantly penetrating global markets. Company sales increased from $16M to over $120M per year in less than four years. From his position as the CEO of a publicly-traded company on NASDAQ and a world-wide leader in its field, Erez has significant operational and managerial experience as well as first-hand experience with international capital markets. Prior to joining NUR, Erez held several senior managerial positions at Scitex Corporation (NASDAQ: SCIX), where he began as a software engineer.
Erez holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude) from Tel-Aviv University and has an MBA from INSEAD. Erez is the chairman of the International Relations Committee of the Israeli High Tech Association (formerly the Israeli Venture Capital Association). Erez was Evergreen's representative on the Boards of Traiana, which was sold to ICAP for $251M and of Identify, which was acquired by BMC Software for $150M. Erez is currently acting as a board member in Taboola, Varonis, Press-sense, e-Glue, Aniboom and Peer39.
Evergreen Venture Partners was established in 1987 as one of Israel’s first venture capital firms. Evergreen invests in early-stage Israeli and Israel-related companies in the following fields: software, internet & media, communications and healthcare. Evergreen’s $650 million of venture capital funds under management represents one of the largest portfolios in Israel with investments in over 120 technology start-ups. Evergreen has exited successfully 35 portfolio companies through IPOs and acquisitions. Some of these companies include Traiana, Colbar, Identify, BigBand, P-Cube, Actona, Backweb, Exalink, Radvision and Radware. Evergreen is currently investing from its fifth generation fund, Evergreen V, a $200M fund.
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Weili Dai - Marvell Technology |
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Weili Dai has been a cornerstone of Marvell's success since she co-founded the company in 1995. Ms. Dai's business acumen, strategic thinking, leadership and endless passion, have contributed greatly to Marvell's fast rise to success. Her close relationship with her customers and the foundation of the trust shared with them has given her a strong reputation for professionalism and integrity throughout the technology industry. Ms. Dai has served a pivotal role in creating some of the Company's most important strategic partnerships and under her leadership Marvell's technology has become an integral part of many of the world's most important products in enterprise, communications, consumer and emerging markets.
One of Silicon Valley's leading women executives, Ms. Dai has held a number of significant positions within Marvell since she co-founded the Company: she has served as Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President, and General Manager of the Communications Business Group. She has also been a Director of Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and Corporate Secretary of the Board. Prior to co-founding Marvell, Ms. Dai was involved in software development and project management at Canon Research Center America, Inc. Ms. Dai holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Ms. Dai is dedicated to the community with a passion for philanthropy. She has been the driving force behind many of Marvell's civic engagements, including participation in the One Laptop Per Child program, The MIT Media Lab Human Speechome project, charitable activities with Give2Asia, and significant donations to earthquake disaster relief in Asia. Her passion for education includes long term contributions to the Harker School and the University of California, Berkeley. Most recently she and her husband Sehat Sutardja, CEO of Marvell, along with Pantas Sutardja, CTO of Marvell, made a significant contribution to Berkeley. The building, named Sutardja Dai Hall by the University in recognition of their support, was opened in February 2009. The Sutardja Dai Hall is home to the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and will help create information technology solutions for many of our most pressing social, environmental and health care concerns.
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Noam Ziv - Qualcomm |
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Noam Ziv is a vice president of technology in the Corporate R&D (CR&D) division of Qualcomm. In his current role, Noam is working with Qualcomm's Health and Life Sciences group on developing technologies and strategies to successfully engage Qualcomm in healthcare. He also serves as a technical advisor on multiple forward-looking programs in CR&D, including ultra low-power radios and peer-to-peer technologies.
Noam joined Qualcomm in 1989 as an engineer and member of the original CDMA team, where he was responsible for the reverse link software. He also contributed to the design and implementation of the first-generation base station ASICs (demodulator, decoder and modulator), the software associated with them, as well as the architecture and design of the entire Early Entry Base Station (EEBS). He was promoted to director in 1993 and was the system engineer for Qualcomm's cellular infrastructure product (Commercial Base Station) used around the world to this day. Just three years later, Noam was again promoted, this time to vice president, and served as the project engineer for the Commercial Base Station project. Noam lead the CR&D software group from 1999 to 2008 and contributed to virtually all of the projects undertaken by the division. During his nearly 20 years at Qualcomm, Noam has been granted more than 20 patents.
Before joining Qualcomm, Noam was an engineer at Rafael-Israel Armament Development Authority where he was responsible for maintaining and enhancing the telemetry ground station software.
Noam attended Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering.
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Masaaki Maeda - NTT DoCoMo USA |
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Masaaki Maeda is president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT DoCoMo, Japan's leading mobile-telecommunications company. Mr. Maeda began his career in the Japanese telecommunications industry in the technical-development department of NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone). In 1994, he moved to NTT DoCoMo, and in 2004 he launched NTT DoCoMo USA's “Namikiteru” service in North America; the software application allows users to read and write Japanese and displays simplified and traditional Chinese, Hangul (Korean), and Japanese characters on BlackBerry handheld devices. This innovation has contributed tremendously to the global mobility of bilingual businesspeople.
Maeda holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In addition, he earned an MBA at MIT's Sloan School of Management in June 2002.
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Levi Shapiro - TMT |
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Levi Shapiro is a wireless industry expert having been an analyst in the mobile media sector, a lecturer, and a frequent author.
Levi founded Two Minute Television, a short-form, ad supported TV series with episodes averaging 4 million broadcast and cable TV viewers, carriage on 110 major websites, and distribution on carriers in North America, Asia and Europe. Levi founded Snack Mobile to develop proprietary software enabling a new category of mobile media- combining casual mobile gaming with live-action video.
As Director of Audience Metrics at Telephia, he developed partnerships with movie studios, TV networks, game and Internet publishers, record labels, brands and advertising agencies and was instrumental in the company's acquisition by Nielsen. He spent the early part of his career in Tokyo and Beijing with Toyota Motor Corporation and with IBM in Milan.
Levi is fluent in English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Hebrew, and Italian. He holds degrees from Tulane (BA), Cornell (Asian Studies) and MIT (MBA).
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Marc Faucher - BlackBerry Partners Fund |
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As a member of the BlackBerry Partners Fund investment management team, Marc is responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and overseeing direct investments in a broad range of mobile application and infrastructure software companies. His diverse and extensive experience enables him to play an integral role in the strategic direction and overall growth of emerging companies.
Prior, Marc spent six years with Summerhill Venture Partners (formerly BCE Capital) investing in communications/technology centric companies throughout North America. He also worked at Bell Mobility driving their strategic equity investment efforts on behalf of the mobile carrier. Prior to Bell, Marc was a senior consultant with the McKenna Group, a strategic consulting firm focused on companies operating within emerging technology markets. During his tenure, Marc advised early stage ventures on their go-to-market strategies.
Marc began his professional career with Ericsson Communications working as a product manager for wireless networks. With Ericsson, Marc played a key role in deploying the first TDMA-based fully integrated dual-band wireless network in the world for Rogers AT&T.
Marc received a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.
The BlackBerry Partners Fund was established to deliver superior returns on the compelling investment opportunities present in the applications, services and supporting infrastructure for mobile platforms. The BlackBerry Partners Fund is focused on investing in mobile commerce applications (payments, advertising, retailing, and banking), vertical and horizontal enterprise applications, location-based and location-aware applications and services (navigation and mapping), communications, social networking, media and entertainment, and lifestyle and personal productivity applications for the BlackBerry and other mobile platforms.
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Zohar Levkovitz - Amobee |
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Zohar Levkovitz is the CEO of Amobee. Zohar has been at the forefront of mobile and internet technology development for over 10 years. As former CTO of Comverse 3G, MMS and WAP Push activities, Zohar led the development and compilation of several architectures and concepts, currently accepted as standards by the global telecom industry. During his tenure at Comverse Mr. Levkovitz held several key positions in the standardization bodies: Member at the 3GPP2 SC (TIA / EIA), chairperson for a strategic technology committee at OMA (WAP Forum), specification author for 3GPP. In addition, Mr. Levkovitz has gained experience in the online advertising arena as General Manager of Smartshopper.com and as a VP of Product Development at Hotbar.com Inc.
Amobee is the first company to deliver a unified, telco-grade system for funding mobile content and communications through advertising revenues. Amobee is the most deployed operator centric ad-serving solution in the world, dynamically inserting relevant, interactive advertisements into all types of mobile entertainment and communication channels, including videos, music, messaging, games, and WAP, using a single, telco-grade ad-serving infrastructure. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company enjoys financial backing from some of the biggest names in venture capital: Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Globespan as well as strategic investments from Motorola, Cisco and two leading operators: Vodafone and Telefónica.
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Zvika Netter - Innovid Media |
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Zvika Netter is the CEO and Co-Founder of Innovid Media. Before Innovid, Netter was the vice president of business development and Ness Technologies, a technology services firm. Prior to that he co-founded NTR, a software company.
Innovid is the leading interactive video advertising platform in the US. Used by brands like P&G , Kraft, Disney, Puma and publishers like NBC, CBS, MTV, and CNN allowing up to 3B impressions a month. Innovid has been recognized most recently by The World Economic Forum as Tech pioneer for 2010.
Innovid's technology allows advertising, including interactive advertising, to be incorporated into video. Video content producers define where advertising will appear, and select the brands that will appear. Advertising--which could take the form of a simple display ad, or a playable video games are inserted only when the video is played. This means the advertising in a video can be changed depending on the audience's location and interest. Innovid's analytical can track the user's activity whilst the video plays, even locating where the mouse is placed from second to second.
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Amiad Solomon - Peer39 |
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Amiad Solomon is the CEO and Founder of Peer39. Together with Peer39 scientists, research and development and marketing groups, he developed the core patents covering Peer39's unique semantic analysis technology and business practices. Prior to founding Peer39, Amiad was a sales and business development executive at IDX (acquired by GE).
Recognized as one of the world's leading experts on the application of semantic technology to next-generation online advertising, Amiad serves on the Content Board of Directors for the Software Information Industry Association, and is a sought after speaker on advertising, product innovation and start-ups.
Peer39, Inc. is an online semantic advertising company based in New York City, with research and development facilities in Israel. Peer39 has developed a new semantic technology for on-line advertising that doesn’t use cookies or keywords and doesn’t invade Web users’ privacy. No cookies, no keywords, no invasion of privacy. A new advanced semantic technology for on-line advertising promises to "to bring the right offer to the right customer, in the right mindset, and the right environment."
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Tzahi Sofer - attracTV |
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Tzahi Sofer is the Co-Founder and CEO of attracTV, an innovative start up company in the field of interactive online video. Since founding attracTV in January 2008, Tzahi has been responsible for the short and long term strategic vision of the company, as well as establishing partnerships with major online video broadcasters.
Prior to attracTV, Tzahi was part of the R&D teams of Texas Instruments and WeFi, a start up company in the field of social wireless networks, where he held several technical positions as a software engineer and team leader. Tzahi holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University.
attracTV delivers the promise of true interactive TV with engrossing interactive widgets. attracTV combines the needs and expectations of viewers to engage with video in completely new ways, with innovative monetization channels for publishers.
attracTV was founded in January 2008 by Tzahi Sofer and Guy Tomer, who both have broad backgrounds in computer technology and accumulated management experience in several startup companies. The company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel with a representative in the United States. attracTV is a privately held company, backed by Jerusalem Capital and private investors.
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Arnold Goldman - BrightSource Energy |
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Arnold J. Goldman is the Chairman and Founder of both BrightSource Energy Inc. and BrightSource Industries (Israel), Ltd. BrightSource has signed PPAs for 2,600MW with PG&E and South California Edison. The BrightSource Solar Energy Development Center with its Luz Power Tower (LPT) 550 technology is producing solar generated steam at the highest sustained temperatures and pressures in the solar thermal field.
Mr. Goldman is the founder of Luz International, Ltd. and served as its CEO. He also co-founded Electric Fuel Ltd, an electric battery/fuel cell company listed today as Aerotech on the NASDAQ. He was the VP of Engineering and co-Founder of Lexitron, the first word processing company in the US, listed on NASDAQ in 1974. Lexitron was bought by Raytheon in 1977. Mr. Goldman is the recipient of two international awards: The International Solar Energy Society Achievement Through Action Award in Memory of Christopher A. Weeks and The EuroSolar Augustin-Mouchot Award for his contribution to solar energy development. He holds a B.S. in Engineering from UCLA and a MSEE from the University of Southern California. Mr. Goldman also holds numerous patents for his inventions and innovations.
BrightSource Energy, Inc. provides clean, reliable and low cost solar energy for utility and industrial companies worldwide. The BrightSource team combines nearly three decades of experience designing, building, and operating the world’s largest solar energy plants with world-class project development capabilities. BrightSource’s solar plants lead the industry in environmental design and help customers reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Headquartered in Oakland, Calif., BrightSource Energy is a privately held company with operations in the United States, Israel and Australia.
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Mike Marelli - Southern California Edison |
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Mike Marelli has more than 20 years experience in the energy industry in a variety of leadership roles in the areas of engineering, marketing, business development and wholesale energy procurement. He spent several years at Sempra International developing a variety of new businesses, including greenfield natural gas distribution companies. He also spent four years in management consulting at PA Consulting Group, providing clients solutions to manage business challenges in the wholesale energy markets.
Mike has also worked for the Southern California Gas Company introducing new technologies to the market and securing new business opportunities. In 2004, Mike joined Southern California Edison and is currently the Director of Contracts for the Renewable and Alternative Power department, where he leads teams responsible for negotiating and managing renewable power purchase agreements for SCE's power portfolio.
Edison International, through its subsidiaries, is a generator and distributor of electric power and an investor in infrastructure and energy assets, including renewable energy. Headquartered in Rosemead, California, Edison International is the parent company of Southern California Edison - a regulated electric utility - and Edison Mission Group, a competitive power generation business.
Israeli company BrightSource Energy is building seven new solar energy plants across California, providing 1,300 megawatts of energy to Southern California Edison, in the biggest solar energy deal ever signed.
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Ory Zik - HelioFocus |
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Dr. Ory Zik is a serial entrepreneur focusing on Cleantech. He co-founded HelioFocus which he led for 3 years as CEO until the successful deal with Chinese Sanhua. The company is developing a solar booster for solar and conventional power plants.
Prior to HelioFocus he was the founding CEO of QuantomiX Inc., a company based on his invention which he led from inception in 2001 to commercialization. QuantomiX solved the problem of imaging live cells and tissues with an electron microscope for research and clinical applications. Prior to that Ory lead a spin-off of El Mul technologies where he co-invented and developed the 'E-beam on a Chip' nanotubes-based platform.
He holds B.Sc. (cum laude) in Physics and Mathematics from Tel Aviv University as well as M.Sc. (cum laude) and Ph.D. in Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he received the Feinberg physics award and the national Amos De Shalit physics prize.
Ory is a venture partner in Tamarix a dedicated Israeli Cleantech fund. He is also active in education and environmental protection. In 1992, he was appointed the scientific curator of Israel's National Museum of Science. In 1993 he founded the Greenpeace Israel Office which he led for 3 years as a Ph.D. students leading clean Mediterranean campaign.
HelioFocus was founded in 2007 and is developing thermo-solar system which comprises of a special receiver located in the center of a large parabolic mirror that returns the sun rays to the receiver. The receiver converts the sun into hot air used for producing energy. The company operates in the utilities market. It's first product application is to boost existing power stations.
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Darren Jamison - Capstone Turbine |
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Darren R. Jamison joined Capstone Turbine Corporation in December 2006 as President and Chief Executive Officer. He brings a wealth of knowledge and over 18 years of direct industry experience in the area of Distributed Generation. Darren has a proven track record in sales, channel development, marketing, service and generally driving the overall top line growth of an organization. Under his leadership, Capstone continues its cutting edge and progressive product development activities as well as the development of a first class customer service organization. Darren and his organization have a proven track record in their commitment to the environment. Thousands of Capstone MicroTurbines® are installed and operating worldwide. These clean and efficient microturbines provide a variety of societal and customer benefits such as reduced fuel consumption; reduced emissions; reduced greenhouse gases; utility grid support; reduced energy costs; and security of power.
In addition, Capstone Turbine is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Partnership, which is committed to improving the efficiency of the nation’s energy infrastructure and reducing emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases. In accordance with EPA’s CHP Greenhouse Gas Reduction Report, through 2005, the high efficiency of Capstone Turbine Corporation’s 203 CHP projects resulted in annual emissions reductions equivalent to: Planting 23,539 acres of forest or removing the emissions of 15,692 automobiles.
Prior to joining Capstone, Darren served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Northern Power Systems, Inc. At Northern Power, he more than tripled sales over a 2-year period. He broadened their offering to include product and service business and instituted a number of successful acquisitions. Prior to joining Northern, Darren was Vice President and General Manager of Distributed Energy Solutions for Steward & Stevenson Services, Inc. from 1994 to 2003.
He holds a B.A. degree in Business Administration and Finance from Seattle University.
Founded in 1988, Capstone Turbine Corporation is the world's leading producer of low-emission microturbine systems, and was first to market with commercially viable microturbine energy products. Capstone Turbine has shipped thousands of Capstone MicroTurbine systems to customers worldwide. These award-winning systems have logged millions of documented runtime operating hours.
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David Nahai - Clinton Climate Initiative |
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H. David Nahai is Senior Advisor to the Clinton Climate Initiative. Nahai is the President of David Nahai Associates, Inc. and the Manager of David Nahai Consulting Services, LLC. David Nahai Consulting Services advises and assists public and private entities involved in the environmental sector. David Nahai Associates is a law firm specializing in real estate, environmental, commercial, energy, and water law. The Clinton Climate Initiative is a division of the Clinton Foundation with the mission to bring about the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale through specific project partnerships with governments globally.
Until October, 2009, Nahai served as the CEO and General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the largest municipal utility in the United States. In this capacity, Nahai oversaw more than 9,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $4.5 billion. He served on the LADWP Board of Commissioners prior to becoming CEO. He was appointed to the Board in 2005 and became Board President in 2006.
Nahai led an overall transformation of the LADWP that included the unprecedented expansion of the utility's renewable energy portfolio; the origination and execution of the City's groundbreaking Water Supply Plan; the attainment of historic reductions in water consumption in the City; the realization of record breaking energy efficiency levels; and the launch and implementation of water and power infrastructure improvement programs. Under his leadership, the LADWP increased its renewable energy portfolio from 3 percent in 2005 to around 15 percent by the end of 2009.
In addition to his expertise in the energy field, Nahai is widely recognized as a leading expert on water issues. He served for over 10 years on California's Regional Water Quality Control Board, which safeguards the quality of surface, ground, and coastal waters in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, an area with over 11 million residents. Nahai was elected to an unprecedented four terms as Chairman of the Board in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2006. Nahai is credited with reinvigorating the effectiveness of the Water Board and spearheading some of its most aggressive programs, especially in the area of coastal protection.
Nahai began his career in the private section as an attorney, working at some of the United States' largest and most respected law firms.
Nahai has been the recipient of numerous awards and commendations. In 2003, he received the Environmental Champion Award from the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters. In 2008, he was honored as an environmental leader by Heal the Bay. He has been twice honored for community leadership. Nahai sits on the Boards of the California League of Conservation Voters and Heal the Bay, and has served on the Boards of numerous charities, including the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, the Iranian American Jewish Federation, and the Jewish Community Foundation.
Nahai holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in law from the London School of Economics and the University of California at Berkeley, and was a Visiting Scholar at Berkeley.
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Igal Litovsky - Shamrock Capital Advisors |
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Igal Litovsky is Vice President of Shamrock Capital Advisors. Igal joined Shamrock Holdings in 2002. Igal's primary responsibilities include fundraising strategy and execution, industry and company research for prospective investments, due diligence, financial analysis, and portfolio company monitoring on behalf of the Fund.
Previously, Igal was a Director with the Mitchell Madison Strategy Consulting Group, a Strategy Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and a Vice President with an L.A.-based Internet sports-media company.
Igal serves as Director of Raval ACS Ltd. and Ahava. Igal graduated from the University of Chicago and the Harvard Business School.
Shamrock Holdings manages private investment funds with over $1.3 billion of committed capital. Shamrock emphasizes an active approach to private equity, public equity, and real estate investing. Shamrock was founded by Roy E. Disney in 1978.
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Glenn Eisen - Guthy-Renker |
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Glenn Eisen is EVP of Marketing for the Guthy-Renker, LLC. He has direct marketing responsibility for all brands and has more than 20 years of marketing experience.
In the thirteen years prior to joining Guthy-Renker, Mr. Eisen held positions both at Vonage and American Online (AOL). At Vonage he was SVP, Marketing and had responsibility for all facets of marketing. At AOL he held a number of positions including SVP, Marketing where he was responsible for customer acquisition.
Mr. Eisen is a recipient of a number of awards the most recent of which is a 2006 Effie.
Glenn Eisen is a graduate of the School of Business Administration at Georgetown University.
Guthy-Renker is one of the largest and most respected direct marketing companies in the world, with distribution in 61 countries. Since 1988, Guthy-Renker has discovered and developed dozens of well-loved, high quality consumer products in the beauty, skincare, entertainment and wellness categories. Known for moving, award-winning productions and marketing campaigns featuring some of today's biggest stars, Guthy-Renker has been credited with transforming the broadcast direct marketing industry.
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Isaac Dabah - Delta Galil Industries |
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Isaac Dabah is the CEO and main Shareholder of Delta Galil Industries since July 2007. During the period of September 2008 until August 2009 Isaac served as Chairman of the Company in addition to his role as CEO. Isaac Dabah has served as a Director of Delta Galil and as Vice-Chairman of Delta Galil's Board of Directors since November 2005.
Prior, Isaac Dabah was the Executive Director of GMM Capital LLC, since it was formed in January 2005. From 2003 to 2004, Mr. Dabah was CEO of the Denim Division of Jones Apparel Group, which included brands such as Gloria Vanderbilt, Polo Jeans and L.E.I. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Dabah was CEO of Gloria Vanderbilt, a division of Jones Apparel Group. From 1993 to 2002, Mr. Dabah was CEO of Gloria Vanderbilt Apparel Corp.
Delta Galil Industries is a global manufacturer and marketer of private label apparel products for men, women and children. Since its inception in 1975, the Company has continually strived to create products that follow a body-before-fabric philosophy, placing equal emphasis on comfort, aesthetics and quality. Delta develops an eclectic offering of made-to-order products, including intimate apparel for women; extensive lines of underwear for men; innovative bras and socks; babywear, leisurewear and nightwear; knitted fabrics, elastic ribbons, trimmings and a variety of other basic apparel materials. |
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Ido Leffler - Yes To Inc. |
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Ido Leffler is the Co-Founder and Carrot Lover of Yes To Inc., where he has realized his goal of catapulting Yes To Carrots into one of the most successful brands in the world, recognized for its unique products, global vision and humanitarian goals.
Ido Leffler is also the former CEO and current director of Trendtrade International, which has a mission to discover and develop unique and exciting brands in the health and beauty industry and share them with the world. Today, Ido works hard to ensure people around the globe are saying "yes" to making a conscious decision to smile more often, improve their lifestyle and help others live healthy. Ido Leffler works very closely with the Yes to Carrots Seed Fund, a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization established to assist underprivileged communities develop self-sustaining organic food sources.
Founded in 2006, Yes To is a consumer-inspired line of hair and skin products born out of a desire to make you look and feel your most happy and radiant. Yes To combines high-quality organic fruits and vegetables with a special mineral elixir derived from the Dead Sea to nourish and hydrate naturally. With four unique collections - Yes To Carrots, Yes To Tomatoes, Yes To Cucumbers, and now Yes To Baby Carrots - the Yes To family addresses a variety of skin and hair needs to help people find their own "recipe" of products.
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Lance Kalish - Yes To Inc. |
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Lance Kalish is the co-founder of Yes To Inc- the makers of Yes To Carrots™, Yes To Tomatoes™, and Yes To Cucumbers™ - one of the fastest growing collection of beauty brands in the world, recognized for its unique products, global vision, entrepreneurial spirit and social outreach. Yes To Inc was most recently recognized as being a key factor in helping redefine the US natural beauty sector from alternative to popular.
Lance started the company with his business partner Ido Leffler 4 years ago, and has built Yes To Inc into one of the fastest growing skincare companies in the world, with a presence in over 28,000 stores in 30 countries, including Target, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Safeway, Sephora Europe etc.
Lance currently oversees the Finance and International Sales divisions of Yes To Inc, and is appropriately titled the “Chief Carrot Counter”.
Lance also co-founded and was the CFO of Trendtrade International, a brand management company involved in International business development, export management, distribution deal negotiation and facilitation where he represented over 25 health & beauty brands from all over the globe. Prior to that Lance worked as a financial analyst in a boutique corporate advisory firm and corporate finance analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions division of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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Tal Tal-Or - Dorot |
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Dorot Garlic and Herbs is a collective factory which belongs to kibbutz Dorot, one of the biggest garlic breeders in Israel, the garlic heads are beeing gathered from the fields to the factory where they and going through special processing
The Dorot Garlic & Herbs plant was established in Kibbutz Dorot in 1992 and quickly turned into a true success story. Today, Dorot is known all over the world thanks to unique individual trays of garlic, ginger, individual herbs and herb mixes - all fresh, tasty and so easy to use.
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Martin Gerstel - Compugen |
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Martin S. Gerstel has served as Compugen's chairman of the Board of Directors since 1997, other than from January 2009 to March 2010 when he served as either CEO or co-CEO and, in both cases, as a member of the Board of Directors.
Prior to Compugen, Mr. Gerstel was co-chairman and CEO of ALZA Corporation, which he helped found in 1968. Mr. Gerstel is the Chairman of Evogene Ltd., Keddem Bioscience, Mada Ltd., the co-founder and co-chairman of Itamar Medical, and serves as a director of Yissum Ltd., Yeda Ltd. and the Foundation for the U.S. National Medals of Science and Technology. He is a member of the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Board of Governors of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is an advisor to the Burrill Life Science Funds and the board of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (“BIRD”) Foundation.
Mr. Gerstel holds a B.S. from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Compugen's mission is to be the world leader in the discovery and licensing of product candidates to the drug and diagnostic industries under milestone and revenue sharing agreements. The Company's increasing inventory of powerful and proprietary discovery platforms is enabling the predictive discovery – field after field – of numerous therapeutic and diagnostic product candidates. Compugen's current collaborations include Biosite, Medarex, Inc., Merck & Co., Inc., Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics (a Johnson & Johnson company), Roche, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Inc., and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. In 2002, Compugen established an affiliate – Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN.TA) – to utilize the Company's in silico predictive discovery capabilities in the agricultural biotechnology field.
Compugen has been publicly traded on Nasdaq (NASDAQ: CGEN) since August 2000 and on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since January 2002.
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Avi Yaron - Visionsense |
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Avi Yaron is the CEO and Founder of Visionsense. Avi's 20 years of management and innovation experience evolved from the communications world, first as an officer in the Israeli intelligence forces and later in Eldat Communications, an Infrared diffused wireless communication company. Among his initiatives, he founded MotoTech, which developed advanced ignition systems for motorcycles, and was among the developers of Tel-Aviv University's microprocessor lab. Due to a brain tumor that was detected by coincidence, Avi Yaron became deeply involved in the minimal invasive surgical field. This personal experience led him to found Visionsense.
Avi Yaron has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University, and an M.S. in Management from Boston University. He holds several patents in the field. He is a visiting lecturer in the MBA entrepreneurial programs of MIT and Babson College.
Visionsense has developed a patented technology, which provides surgeons with real-time, high-resolution, natural stereoscopic vision for Minimal Invasive Surgery applications. The design of the proprietary single sensor is based on multidisciplinary technologies combined with sophisticated image processing algorithms.
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Tzameret Fuerst - Circ MedTech |
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Tzameret Fuerst is the CEO of Circ MedTech, a medical device company in the field of HIV prevention. Following multiple randomized and controlled studies proving that circumcised men reduce their lifetime risk of HIV infection by 60% in high risk areas such as Africa, Circ MedTech has created a revolutionary device that conducts painless and bloodless circumcision, and can be deployed by nurses in remote villages in non-sterile settings.
She was the Director of New Product Development at Keter Plastic, Israel's largest plastic manufacturer and exporter, and was a Strategic Planner at the advertising agency Geller Nessis (formerly D'Arcy), where she handled all multinational accounts and established and managed the in-house web services division, and began her career in the family owned Nike Shoe and Apparel business (in Israel).
After 20 years of research, a vaccine for HIV is still a moving target. In 2007, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS and USAIDS discovered that circumcised males reduce their lifetime risk of HIV / AIDS by about 60% (!) in high risk, HIV affected areas such as Africa. Many countries have announced circumcision a national priority and have taken great strides to educate their people on the benefits of this procedure.
Circ MedTech has created a simple and scalable medical device for circumcision that requires no surgery, is virtually painless, completely bloodless and can be deployed by any trained health practitioner. |
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Uri Blackman - GIDEON Informatics |
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Uri serves as CEO of GIDEON Informatics, a company that he founded as an undergraduate. The GIDEON product, a web-based medical decision support and information product for infectious diseases and microbiology, is deployed at hundreds of institutions in over 45 countries.
Uri served as Vice President of Corporate Development at Speedbit. In this role, Uri developed and managed strategic relationships for Download Accelerator, a software product whose user base grew from 13 to over 90 million users during his time with the company. Uri managed a successful M&A process for the company. Uri came to Speedbit after founding Oloop, a venture backed online insurance brokerage firm.
Uri serves as President of the Technology Council of Southern California and has served on the advisory board of a number of technology companies in the Silicon Valley and Israel. Uri served as Commander in the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corp. He received his BA in Computer Science and Philosophy from Tel Aviv University and his Masters of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
GIDEON is an easy to use online application, updated weekly, that helps health care professionals diagnose infectious diseases and stay up to date on the latest trends in epidemiology, treatment and microbiology.
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Isabel Maxwell - CommTouch |
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Isabel Maxwell is a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum and co-founder of The McKinley Group, creator of the pioneering Magellan online search engine that was successfully sold to Excite. She is president emerita of CommTouch (NASDAQ:CTCH).
Isabel Maxwell brings over fifteen years of international journalism and entertainment experience with accomplishments including production/direction for the Yorkshire and Southern Independent Television networks in the UK and feature film production for New World Pictures. She was a founding director serving on the Board of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts-LA from 1986-1998 and is a long-time member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), U.K. Isabel Maxwell holds honor moderations in Jurisprudence and a B.A. and M.A. in history and modern languages from Oxford University. She has divided her time for the past 15 years between Los Angeles, Israel and Silicon Valley. |
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Emma Butin - Kryon Systems |
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Emma Butin is the Founder and CEO of Kryon Systems. Emma keeps the company on its toes; she is the founder, CEO and also the good luck charm of the company. During her professional career Emma worked at one of the largest law firms in Israel and later became the General Counsel and VP of an Orthopedic Software company.
Emma holds a BBA and a JD from schools in NY and is an admitted attorney both in New York and Israel. Emma is fluent in Hebrew, English and Russian and recently completed her studies of the new field of Neo-Psychology.
Kryon Systems has created a unique software solution that will revolutionize the way in which people use and interact with computers. Kryon Systems’ LEO - "Learn, Evolve, Operate" - is the next generation of help and execution tools. LEO provides more than answers to users’ questions, it actually carries out the task required in a step-by-step, interactive manner , converting users into power users.
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Allon Bloch - Wix |
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Allon Bloch is the Co-CEO of Wix.
Wix has developed a WebTop publishing platform; allowing users to create any kind of web content (web sites, widgets, blogs, myspace layouts) and publish that content anywhere they want.
Wix is the only publishing offering that allows users to create stunning flash-based content online that is totally personalized and without the need to code. Wix does this without the need to use complex publishing systems and without being constrained by the limitations of template based solutions. Furthermore Wix sites enable effective promotion as they are SEO friendly.
Wix launched the open beta in June. Wix users are small businesses, consumers and web designers. They are located in NYC and Tel Aviv.
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Nadav Gur - WorldMate |
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As WorldMate's founding CEO Nadav grew the company to more than 5 million users across 10 mobile platforms and established WorldMate as a global travel brand before moving into his role as Chief Commercial Officer, overseeing WorldMate's marketing and business development activities.
Prior to founding WorldMate, Nadav was the first employee of Lamda Systems Engineering, a consulting firm managing military and civil aerospace C3I projects. Nadav is a reseve major in the Israeli Air Force. He holds an M.S. in Business Administration from the Recanati School at Tel Aviv University and a B.S. in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
WorldMate has been developing award-winning mobile travel software since 2000. Removing stress and paperwork from the travel experience, WorldMate turns a mobile device into a personal travel companion, providing frequent travelers all the services they need at home, work or on the go. Dubbed a traveler's "guardian angel," the newest addition to the WorldMate product family, WorldMate Live, tracks every trip and sends real-time "push" alerts about itinerary updates and changes, including flight delays and cancellations. WorldMate products also feature travel resources including flight schedules, weather forecasts, travel directories, maps, world clocks, a currency converter and much more. |
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Larry Goldberg - TuneWiki |
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Larry Goldberg is Chief Operating Officer at TuneWiki. A driven senior executive and proven leader in organizations ranging from start-ups to a rapid growth multi-national corporation, Larry brings cross-functional management skills in diverse industries, with extensive experience in interactive entertainment. Prior to joining TuneWiki, Larry led and motivated Activision’s worldwide product development organization comprised of more than 1,500 employees and independent contractors, growing annual revenues by $200 million and annual operating income by $57 million in three years.
TuneWiki is an award-winning social music player for mobile phones. With the largest legally-licensed lyrics database in the world, TuneWiki wants to change the mobile music experience. The technology behind TuneWiki combines subtitled lyrics with music, music videos, and internet streaming radio. Lyrics are translated into more than 40 languages making TuneWiki the global lyrics resource for music-lovers. TuneWiki also makes music social – with community wiki-features for lyric and translation updates, real-time mapping and geographical charting of music listening habits around the globe and a fan community. Fans can also search/edit/translate the entire database of lyrics on the company website at www.tunewiki.com.
Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands and has offices in Los Angeles; Bellbrook, Ohio and Tel Aviv, Israel. To learn more, visit www.tunewiki.com.
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Miki Balin - WinBuyer |
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Miki Balin is the President and Founder of WinBuyer. WinBuyer evolved from Conversion Methods, an e-commerce startup he founded in 2004. Mr. Balin has devoted much of his career managing marketing-related ventures. Prior to establishing Conversion Methods and WinBuyer, he founded Balin, Adatto & Cohen, a leading health care consulting and advertising firm in Israel. He also managed a family-owned food distribution company, and served as general manager of the Rina Shinfeld Ballet Theatre where he still serves as a director today.
Mr. Balin received academic education in Business Administration at the Israel College of Management.
WinBuyer develops retail value-added monetization solutions that maximize the retailer page revenue (RPM) and generate lift by enhancing consumer experience and confidence. WinBuyer's initial monetization product, an Onsite Comparative Pricing (OCP) application, enables retailers to accelerate consumer purchasing behavior by embedding comparative shopping information into a retailer's product detail page. With OCP, over 250 merchants are realizing the benefits of increased sales conversion, greater average order size, improved site stickiness and enhanced consumer confidence. WinBuyer was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and London, England. For additional information on WinBuyer please contact press@winbuyer.com
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Udi Paret - Pythagoras Solar |
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With his leadership role in business development and marketing, Mr. Paret is responsible for partnership development and accelerating the proliferation of Pythagoras Solar's technology. Before joining Pythagoras Solar, Mr. Paret was President of Fusion Dynamic, where he led global expansion and partnership development with IBM. Prior to that, Mr. Paret joined the founding team of Intransa, a pioneering storage-over-IP company and transformed the company into a multimillion dollar global enterprise with agreements with Huawei, China and HCL, India. Earlier in his career, Mr. Paret held executive positions at 3Com Corporation, including Sr. Director of Customer Care for its $600 million OEM division. Mr. Paret holds a B.Sc in Industrial Engineering & Management from the Technion in Israel and participated in Executive Programs at Stanford University.
Pythagoras Solar was conceived at Precede Technologies, an Israeli incubator, which teams up scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Dr. Itay Baruchi, an award-winning physicist, and Gonen Fink, a leader in taking Check Point Software from start-up to a multibillion dollar company, saw a business opportunity at the intersection of rising demand for Green Buildings and declining cost of Photovoltaic (PV) solar power. Their innovative product can be simply described as a solar window. It combines energy efficiency, power generation, and transparency in a standard form factor that can be easily integrated into conventional building design and construction processes to make Net Zero Buildings a wider reality.
Pythagoras Solar's Photovoltaic Glass Unit (PVGU) uses patent-pending optical technology, high-efficiency silicon, and advanced materials to provide the industry's first highest-transparency and highest-density PV power generation in a standard double-pane window form factor, known in the industry as an insulating glass unit, or IGU. The PVGU leverages the modularity and ease of installation of the IGU while controlling direct solar radiation and providing greater transparency to further increase the energy efficiency gains through reduced heating/cooling and lighting costs.
The first products are designed for curtain wall and skylight applications and can be optimized for elevation, location, and climate zone through Pythagoras' proprietary software tools. Future products include colored roof tiles and spandrels.
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Vered Levy-Ron - Snapily |
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Vered Levy-Ron joined HumanEyes Technologies in 2010. Prior to joining the company, she founded DaLi Advisory, a consulting company advising CEOs of technology companies. She was also CEO of Yalicoo, an internet company. Before that, she served as head of the Prepaid Products and Services Group at IDT Telecom, focusing on the large retailers and convenience stores in the US. Ms. Levy-Ron was also a strategy management consultant at A.T. Kearney in Paris, at Booz Allen & Hamilton in New York and at Shaldor in Tel Aviv, where she consulted to large global technology companies on a wide range of business issues. She is a board member at RRsat (NASDAQ:RRST).
Ms. Levy-Ron holds a B.A. degree in French and economics from Tel Aviv University and an M.B.A. degree in finance and international management from Columbia Business School.
HumanEyes Technologies, Ltd., provides a complete, end-to-end solution for creation and printing of 3D and 2D effects. The award-winning company develops software for photographers, graphic artists and printers. HumanEyes Technologies applies vast experience and knowledge in the lenticular segment to engineer software that noticeably enhances creativity and productivity without compromising efficiency and practicality. HumanEyes solutions were created as a result of a technological breakthrough by Professor Shmuel Peleg, a world renowned figure in Computer Vision and two members of his team, Dr. Moshe Ben-Ezra and Ms. Yael Pritch, from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University, Israel. The original invention accomplished what had been thought impossible: the combination of 3D stereo and panorama.
Snapily, a service offered by HumanEyes Technologies, is a new service allowing consumers to harness "special effects" printing technology to create personal and dynamic photo merchandise. Snapily brings HumanEyes' B2B offering to consumers. Snapily's proprietary technology, which has been in development for more than seven years, enables consumers to add "special effects", such as 3D, Flip, Morph, and, coming soon, printed video clips, to ordinary digital images. In addition to building a standalone destination, Snapily is working with partners to help them offer their customers Snapily's special effects technology, which includes the online creation tools and the short run printing capabilities. The company's Chairman of the Board is Benny Landa, founder and former CEO of Indigo, which was acquired by HP in 2002.
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Randy Ditzler - Sequoia Capital |
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Randy is a Partner with Sequoia Capital Israel and focuses on systems and software investments. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2004, Randy served as the CEO of Actona Technologies (CSCO). Prior to joining Actona, Randy was the Founder & CEO of Telegis Networks. Earlier, Randy was the Founder & CEO of MarketOne Builders and before that the President & CEO of Freestone Investments.
Randy has a BS in Industrial Technology from California State University in Fresno.
Sequoia Capital in Israel caters to the founders and management who have selected us as their business partners. With offices in Herzelia and Menlo Park, Sequoia Capital has a mixture of local experience and global ties that let Sequoia work with great entrepreneurs to help build market leading companies.
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Ron Zuckerman - RayV |
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Ron Zuckerman is the Chairman and CEO of RayV. With 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor in the high tech industry, Ron Zuckerman founded and acted as active chairman of Precise Software Solutions, acquired by Veritas in 2003 for over $600M. Ron founded Sapiens International (NASDAQ: SPNS) and acted as chairman, and CEO up to 1999.
Ron also co-founded and is currently a board member of GVT Telecom, a large, publicly traded telecom operator in Brazil.
Ron Zuckerman is an early investor and shareholder in several public companies and numerous Israeli-related technology startups. Ron relocated to Los Angeles in summer 2008 to join RayV's headquarters.
RayV is all about giving you the opportunity to create TV, from existing TV networks that wish to expand their offering in new territories to entrepreneurs with ideas for niche TV and live events. RayV provides a wall-to-wall turnkey solution which combines High Quality Live Streaming at a fraction of the cost of traditional broadcast with fully integrated creation, display and monetization tools.
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Guy Oranim - BabyFirstTV |
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Guy Oranim, along with business partner, Sharon Rechter, conceptualized and co-founded BabyFirstTV, the first and only television channel in the U.S. dedicated to providing rich, innovative educational content designed to enhance baby's development in a delightful and engaging way. A combined background in television programming and advertising, and a shared passion for child development sparked their foray into this area.
As the chief executive officer, Guy Oranim brings a wealth of leadership and strategic insight to BabyFirstTV gained from his broad background in advertising and market research. Serving as executive vice president (based in Israel) for one of the leading international ad agencies, BBDO Advertising, he drove strategic planning and product initiatives for several global lifestyle brands including PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, and Hertz to name a few. He also co-authored a market research book Researchers Speak – Marketing Research and Its Implications, which illustrates the importance of market research, consumer behavior and trends, and marketing ethics.
Oranim received both his bachelor of law (L.L.B.) and his M.B.A. in marketing and international business from Tel Aviv University, Israel.
BabyFirstTV goes above and beyond traditional TV – it's a whole world of exploration that provides a positive environment and an engaging experience for both you and your baby. Supported by leading childhood experts, our programming features original new content including "Rainbow Horse," "Sandman," and "I Can Sign" to name a few, as well as new tools that help you better understand the developmental benefits for your baby with each of the programs.
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Izhar Shay - Canaan Partners |
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Izhar Shay has been head of Canaan Partners' Israel operations since 2006. Izhar focuses on companies in communications and mobility, software, clean technologies and digital media. He also seeks key investments in medical devices. Izhar led Canaan’s investments in LiveU, Efficient Finance, EnStorage, Prime Sense and N-trig. Izhar also oversees Canaan’s local involvement in other Israeli companies. Izhar serves on the board of directors of LiveU, Efficient Finance, N-trig and Prime Sense.
With more than 20 years of operational experience as a successful entrepreneur, Izhar was previously Chairman and CEO of V-Secure Technologies, which he grew to a leading position in the intrusion prevention market. The company was acquired by Radware (RDWR) in December 2005. Prior to V-Secure, Izhar was CEO and co-founder of Business Layers, a Canaan portfolio company. Izhar led Business Layers from startup to a dominant player position in the identity management market, until it was acquired by Netegrity (NETE) in December 2003. Izhar was previously VP of Business Development The BRM Group.
Izhar holds a B.Sc. in Electronics Engineering from the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel. He was a paratrooper and officer in the Israeli army. Izhar is involved in various volunteer activities related to the education of young students in Israel. He serves on the board of directors of Snunit, a nonprofit organization, specializing in integrating technology and the Internet into Israel’s elementary schools. Izhar is also a member of the board of directors of Ort, Israel Sci-Tech Schools organization. He writes a weekly column at Globes, and in 2009 he published his first book (in Hebrew) - "As Beautiful As You".
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Eran Wagner - cVidya Networks |
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As President, North America Operations for cVidya Networks, Eran Wagner is working to develop the company's business in North America including direct sales, channel sales, marketing and new product creation.
Prior to his new role with cVidya, Eran was VP, Portfolio Strategy and Planning, Amdocs Products Group where he was responsible for developing Amdocs' overall product strategy, including portfolio planning, foundational products, product integration, demo capabilities, and the development of targeted solutions. Eran Joined Amdocs in 2004 following the successful acquisition of XACCT Technologies, a company he founded, by Amdocs.
Prior to Amdocs, Eran co-founded in 1997 XACCT Technologies Inc, where he served as the chairman of the Board of Directors and the executive vice president - Technology, responsible for the definition, creation and market introduction of all XACCT products, and for strategic alliances.
Before XACCT, Eran co-founded the Xpert Group in 1993, and served as president and CEO. The Xpert Group specialized in system integration projects for corporate and service providers networking and Internet/intranet environments. The Xpert Group was sold in 2005 to One.
Prior to Eran's initial business venture, he worked as a software engineer. He holds a Bachelors of Science degree from Tel-Aviv University. Eran is the inventor of multiple granted patents. He is based in San Jose, California.
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Sharona Justman - STEP Strategy Advisors |
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Sharona Justman is the Managing Director of STEP Strategy Advisors, an acquisitions advisory and strategic planning firm supporting the identification and facilitation of business and acquisition partners for companies across many industries.
Sharona specializes in developing the strategic direction for a company and facilitating key business transactions from business development through acquisition incorporating a clear plan of action that addresses tactics to support revenue focused and market positioning activities that will yield measurable successes.
STEP is a Strategic Business Advisory firm founded in 2001 (www.STEPstrategy.net). The STEP team is comprised of experienced CEOs and senior executives who have developed significant and successful companies who focus on providing advice on strategic direction, business alliances, market positioning, revenue growth, mergers and acquisitions, and the development and execution of strategies to achieve significant results. STEP works with emerging growth companies to build their brand value and to develop and facilitate significant business transactions. STEP has offices in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv.
Sharona co-founded Rubenstein / Justman Management Consultants (www.RJMC.net) in 1986 providing information technology and operations improvement management consulting services to middle market companies in the industries of distribution, manufacturing, financial services, entertainment, and large non-profit organizations. RJMC provides project management for enterprise-wide projects involving information technology evaluation, selection, and integration as well as operations improvement consulting and business process reengineering services.
Sharona Justman began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and is a CPA. Sharona is an alumna of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and California State University, Northridge with a BS in Accounting and Economics.
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Or Matias - |
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Or Matias is a pianist, composer, and songwriter. Alongside his professional training as a classical musician, Or also features cross-genre fusions of various styles, including, jazz, rock, hip-hop, and pop.
Having received this May his undergraduate degree from Juilliard as a classical pianist under the guidance of Professor Julian Martin, Or has been awarded the 2010 Dean’s Fellowship at NYU, where he will be pursuing his graduate studies in composition for musical theatre.
As a classical pianist, Or has performed in halls throughout the United States and Europe. He has participated in master classes and lessons with Itzhak Perlman, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Maxim Vengeroff, and the Takacs Quartet, to name a few. Previously he studies with Dr. Sharon Mann and Ms. Hadassah Gonen. Since the age of 10 he also played with chamber music groups, including participating (with scholarship) and performing in The Music Academy of the West, the Banff Music Festival, the Perlman Music Progam, and the Musica Mundi program for chamber music.
As a composer, Or has been composing original music and songs since the age of 9. He performs in Manhattan nightclubs, music festivals, and rock/pop performances. Since the age of 16 he has been receiving commissions to compose original scores for student films.
As musical director, since his high school years, Or has been directing large musical events and ceremonies in the Bay area and Israel.
In 2008, Or was invited to perform his original songs and music in the “New York’s Best Emerging Jewish Talents” event. Or was also commissioned to write songs for professional singers, and his original music and songs have been featured on television stations and concert halls in Canada, the United States, and Israel. Or believes that all music is universal. dogmaX
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