Yossi Vardi

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Yossi Vardi
Arik Vardi (co-founder of ICQ
), Oded, and Dani

Joseph "Yossi" Vardi (

water technology.[1]

Personal life

Joseph Vardi was born in

Operations Research
and a D. Sc. (his thesis received the Kennedy-Leigh Award).

He is married to Talma and the father of

Arik (co-founder of ICQ), Oded, and Dani.[2]

Career

Vardi began his entrepreneurial career in 1969, at the age of 26, as co-founder and first CEO of TEKEM (

Haifa Chemicals
, Chemicals and Phosphates, and others. He also chaired the Oil Explorations Concessions Council and Fertilizers Development Council.

He was sent to the U.S. to serve as the Director of the Investment Authority in North America, and Consul For Economic Affairs of the State of Israel in

Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F). He acted as an advisor to the Israeli mission to the U.N.

Upon returning to Israel, he served as the first Director General of the Ministry of Energy. Vardi also chaired the Israel National Oil Company, and was a member of the board of

Oil Refineries Ltd. During his tenure, Israel discovered and developed oil fields in the Gulf of Suez. Vardi co-founded Alon oil, International Laser Technologies, Granite Hacarmel and other companies. Vardi is a co-holder of a patent on instant messaging on telephones.[4]

Investment strategy

Vardi is an early stage "angel".

IAC/InterActiveCorp). Among his other investments are: Come2Play (a social gaming site), Fring, speedbit,[7] Cellogic[8] (developer of a content discovery platform for mobile publishers, and of the deeplink.me mobile deep linking platform), BloggersBase[9] (a discovery platform for premium UGC), Wefi
and many others. Mirabilis, which practically had no revenues, was sold to AOL just 19 months after it released its product for over 400 million dollars.[10] The sale inspired a whole generation of young Israelis to open start ups.[11] According to Forbes: "...Overnight, a new phrase "the Mirabilis Effect," became popular as young Israeli entrepreneurs yearned to copy the company's success".[12]

After retiring from the civil service, Vardi served on the boards of

Ormat Industries to identify and develop its geothermal
activity. He is a member of Amdocs advisory committee.

Cultivating Culture of Innovation and Creativity

In recent years Vardi is active in fostering a culture of innovation and creativity in Israel and abroad. He founded Kinnernet, an annual, three days gathering of creative people from all over the world at the shores of the Sea of Gallilee; he is the chairman of 4YFN (4 Years from Now), the startup event organized by Mobile World Capital Barcelona; together with Dr Hubert Burda he is co-chairing the annual DLD (Digital, Lifestyle, Design) conference in Munich; together with Sir Martin Sorrell he is co-chairing the annual Stream unconference in Greece, he also co-hosting ICUC – (Internet Cowboys UnConference) in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He talks about this heavily in the Shaping Business Minds Through Art Podcast.[13]

Public sector

After leaving the government, Vardi continued to be involved in the public sector. He is the Co-Chair of the European Union – Israel Strategic Business Dialogue. He chaired a number of government-appointed commissions and committees, among them the Public Commission for the Regulation of the Electricity Sector, the Public Commission on Raising

Weizmann Institute
.

Peace negotiations

In his capacity as the Director General of the Ministry of Energy, Vardi led the negotiations in regards to the oil part in the peace agreement with Egypt. While in the private sector Vardi was asked to serve as special advisor to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Finance, for regional cooperation, and to head the

economic negotiations with Jordan. He also participated in the multi-lateral talks with the Palestinians, and served on the Israeli delegation to the Wye Plantation talks with the Syrians.[15]

In 2013, Vardi was one of a group of Israeli and Palestinian business figures who launched Breaking the Impasse (BTI), a forum in favor of advancing a diplomatic solution.[16][17] BTI is supported by the World Economic Forum.[16]

International activities

Vardi acted as an advisor to the

Amazon.com
, Allied-signal, Siemens-Albis and others.

Awards

Vardi was selected by Wall Street Journal Europe for "Tech's Top 25",[18] and won the TechCrunch Europe 2009 "Best investor personality" award.[19] He received an Honorary Doctorate[20] from the Technion and from Ben Gurion University, Honorary Fellowship from the Open University, twice received the Prime Minister Award for life achievements in the high tech area; the Industry Award, for his contribution to the development Israel's industry; the 1998 entrepreneur of the year, the 2010 Excellence in Global Entrepreneurship and Management Award, and the Hugo Ramniceanu prize for Economics, all from Tel Aviv University. He received the Heim Herzog prize for unique contribution to the state of Israel from the Hebrew University and the President Herzog Foundation. He also received the CEO's Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame from the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization,[21] and a Certificate of Merit for the pioneering of the software industry and Information Technology from the Israel Chamber of System Analysts, as well as the Innovation Leadership Medal from the European Alliance for Innovation.

He was nominated as one of The Most Influential International Executives by The Industry Standard,

The Algemeiner for the "Jewish 100 - the top 100 people positively influenced Jewish life"[26] and by Wired magazine as number 9 of the Wired 2014 top 100.[27]

Published works

See also

References

  1. ^ Yossi Vardi. The Economist, Volume 386, Issues 8561-8573. March 28, 2011. Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  2. ISBN 9780465021130
    . Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  3. ^ Interview with Yossi Vardi, Haaretz [permanent dead link]
  4. ISBN 978-0-465-01935-9. Retrieved September 21, 2011.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  5. ISBN 978-0-7710-7966-5
    . Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  6. ^ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/767929.html [dead link]
  7. ^ "SpeedBit's Incredible Shrinking Download". 15 April 2007. Archived from the original on 15 April 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. ^ "CELLOGIC". 17 October 2012. Archived from the original on 17 October 2012. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  9. ^ "Promote Your Blog, Get Discovered and Make Money with BloggersBase.com". 16 August 2009. Archived from the original on 16 August 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  10. TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved May 25, 2009. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help
    )
  11. Yair Goldfinger
    , one of Mirabilis' founders, discusses the social impact of the sale as part of the start-up's history
  12. ^ Lisa Alcalay Klug (1999-08-19). "Sefi Visiger: ICQ's low-key creator". Forbes Magazine.
  13. ^ #14 Dr. Yossi Vardi. The Art of Technology. - Shaping Business Minds Through Art - The Artian Podcast, retrieved 2021-02-26
  14. ^ "Jerusalem Foundation". 11 March 2008. Archived from the original on 11 March 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  15. ISBN 978-0-691-01023-6
    . Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  16. ^ a b "Breaking the impasse in the Middle East". 27 May 2013. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  17. ^ Coren, Ora (29 January 2014). "Israeli Businesspeople Launch Campaign for Peace With Palestinians". Haaretz. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  18. ^ "Tech's Top 25". Wall Street Journal. 29 June 2011.
  19. ^ Butcher, Mike (9 July 2009). "Europe - TechCrunch".
  20. ^ [1][permanent dead link]
  21. ^ "CEO Hall of Fame | CEO". Archived from the original on 2016-05-13. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  22. ^ "The Son Also Rises". 27 September 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  23. ^ "Persons of the Decade". Haaretz. Retrieved September 21, 2011.
  24. ^ "ISRAEL21c - Uncovering Israel". Israel21c.
  25. ^ "The top 10 icons of Israeli high-tech – part one". 20 May 2012.
  26. ^ "The Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life (INTRODUCTION)". Algemeiner.com.
  27. ^ "The 2014 Wired 100 (Wired UK)". Wired UK. 20 April 2014. Archived from the original on 20 April 2014.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
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