Management

Gideon Mantel co-founded Commtouch in February 1991 and currently serves as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Mantel has been a member of the board of directors since the company's inception in 1991. He has more than ten years of leadership experience in the messaging industry. As one of the pioneers in email development, Mr. Mantel has led Commtouch to its dominant position as the leading provider of outsourced email and messaging services worldwide. Before founding Commtouch, Mr. Mantel was Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Financial Leverages Ltd., an Israeli investment fund, where he led the strategic direction of the company and managed its Initial Public Offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Mr. Mantel also served as Chief Financial Officer of The Gali Group, one of Israel's largest consumer products companies. Mr. Mantel holds an MBA from Tel Aviv University.

Amir Lev co-founded Commtouch in February 1991 and serves as Chief Technology Officer and President, Commtouch Ltd. Mr. Lev has been a member of the board of directors since the company's inception in 1991. He currently oversees all research & development activities. Before founding Commtouch, Mr. Lev managed development efforts for Daisy Systems, a leading developer and manufacturer of computer aided design products. Mr. Lev holds a B.A. in Computer Science and Economics from Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Ido Hadari joined Commtouch in 2008, served as Vice President of International Sales & Business Development, and since November 2009 as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Hadari has over a decade of business management and sales experience, most recently prior to Commtouch at Interwise, an enterprise voice and web conferencing provider that was acquired by AT&T. At Interwise, where he worked for eight years, he held various senior business development and channel management positions with responsibilities for regional sales in Europe and Asia, and global strategic alliances. He holds a BA magna cum laude in Business Administration and Economics from Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Ron Ela joined Commtouch in July, 2006 as Chief Financial Officer. A Certified Public Accountant, Mr. Ela formerly held management positions at two Israeli-based Nasdaq listed companies, and most recently held the role of Controller at Verint Systems Ltd., a wholly–owned subsidiary of Verint Systems Inc. During the five years prior to that time, Ela served as Deputy Controller and subsequently Controller for Partner Communication Ltd. Also, Ela spent 3 years in public accounting with Kesselman & Kesselman, a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Israel.

Gary Davis joined Commtouch in September 1999 and serves as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Mr. Davis possesses over 18 years of legal experience in both the private law firm and corporate settings, and is certified to practice law in both the State of Israel and California. Prior to September 1999, Mr. Davis was in-house counsel to Israel Military Industries and Elta Electronics Industries. He received a B.A. in Political Economy of Industrial Societies from U.C. Berkeley and a J.D. in law from Golden Gate University.

Asaf Greiner joined Commtouch in 2007 and serves as Vice President of Products. Mr. Greiner has over a decade of experience in executive and entrepreneurial roles, previously serving as Director of Business Innovation at Aladdin Knowledge Systems, a company specializing in software and Internet security. Previously he co-founded and acted as general manager of beeFENCE, a network security company, and Aduva, a Linux lifecycle management company that was acquired by SUN Microsystems. He holds an MBA summa cum laude from The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya and a BA in Business and Economics from Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Francois Depayras re-joined Commtouch in 2010 as Vice President of Americas Sales and Business Development. Mr. Depayras has over a decade of experience in the messaging market, from leadership roles at Critical Path and Ensim as well as his prior affiliation with Commtouch. At Critical Path, Mr. Depayras served as Senior Product Manager, responsible for the development of a hosted email solution targeting large enterprises. He then served as Vice President of Sales and Alliances at Ensim, where he was responsible for managing worldwide sales of user provisioning software solutions targeting both service providers and enterprises, and managed relationships with strategic partners. Prior to these positions, Mr. Depayras worked at Commtouch for four years in a variety of roles, his last post being Director of Business Development. He holds an MBA from San Francisco State University.

Ofer Tal joined Commtouch in 2009 as Vice President of International Sales & Business Development. Mr. Tal is an experienced business development & sales executive with nearly a decade of global experience in technology solutions across EMEA. Most recently prior to Commtouch, he served as Senior Director of Channel Sales and then Director of Sales, SEMEA at GigaSpaces Technologies. Prior to GigaSpaces, he held various senior business development and sales positions at Interwise, an enterprise voice and web conferencing provider that was acquired by AT&T. Tal holds an LL.B from the University of Tel Aviv School of Law.

Rebecca Steinberg Herson joined Commtouch in April 2006, and orchestrates the company's global marketing strategy and activities. Prior to joining Commtouch, Ms. Herson served as Vice President of Marketing at Redmatch, a software start-up. Previously, she led marketing initiatives at Whale Communications (acquired in 2006 by Microsoft), Orckit Communications (Nasdaq: ORCT), and at various not-for-profit organizations. As the head of marketing for six years at Whale, an Internet security company, she was responsible for launching numerous hardware/software products and held a key role in establishing the company as a market leader in the secure remote access field. Ms. Herson holds a BA magna cum laude from Yale University, and an MS in Management from Boston University.

Yossi Maslaton joined Commtouch in 1998 and serves as Vice President of Network Operations and Customer Services. Before 2005 he was Director of Service Operations. With over 19 years of experience in the fields of Information Technology and Networking, Mr. Maslaton is responsible for the operations of Commtouch's data centers and customer services, servicing tens of millions of users daily with the highest standards of uptime. From 1991 to 1998 Mr. Maslaton was Manager of Information Systems and labs for RND Networks, a group of hi-tech startups in the network-routing field. Prior to that, Mr. Maslaton managed the technical field-operations of a large project for the IDF in the areas of distributed computing systems and radio communications.

Gabriel Mizrahi joined Commtouch in 2008 and serves as Vice President of Technologies. He holds over a decade of technology management experience. Prior to Commtouch, Mr. Mizrahi co-founded and served as CTO of PineApp, a global messaging and web security company that utilizes Commtouch’s technology. Prior to PineApp, Mr. Mizrahi was a Project Manager in a large integration company, where he led Unix and Linux projects in the field of Internet Security & Networking. He has extensive technical knowledge and experience in tailor-made solutions and complex technology integration, and received a prestigious award from the Chief of Electronics and Computers of the Israel Defense Force for designing, developing and implementing a logistics and technical management system. Mr. Mizrahi holds a technical degree in electronics from Ort College.

Ronen Rosenblatt re-joined Commtouch in 2009 and serves as Vice President of engineering. For the past 18 years, he has held executive positions in the Israeli hi-tech industry ranging from start–ups to publically traded companies. Mr. Rosenblatt served as VP of research and development at Commtouch in its early stages until 2000 and most recently, he served as Vice President of research and development at NiceVision, a division of Nice Systems. Previously, he was a general manager at Savantis Ltd., Vice President of research and development at Xacct (which was acquired by Amdocs) and Vice President of customer support at Gigaspaces. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Tel-Aviv University and an Executive MBA from the Recanati School of Business.