Management

Mr. Yanai joined Commtouch in 2011, bringing over two decades of experience in the information security industry. He was previously the vice president of corporate development strategy at SafeNet, a global leader in information security, where he led SafeNet's strategic decisions regarding product and solution partnerships, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Yanai also served as the vice president for the rapidly-growing authentication business unit and award-winning two-factor authentication solutions at SafeNet, Inc. and Aladdin Knowledge Systems, which merged with SafeNet. Prior to Aladdin, Mr. Yanai managed the product team of BMC Software’s security division, specializing in identity and password management systems. Mr. Yanai holds a B.S. in mathematics and computer science and an MBA from Ben Gurion University in Israel.

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.

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. Mr. Ela holds a B.A. in business administration majoring in accounting from the College of Management Academic Studies.

Amos Arev joined Commtouch in 2011 as Vice President of Research & Development. Mr. Arev has over 20 years of software development management experience and has spent over half of his career specializing in IT security. Prior to joining Commtouch, Mr. Arev was VP R&D of Skybox Security, a provider of automated security risk management solutions. Prior to Skybox Security, Mr. Arev held several R&D management positions at Check Point Software and at Comverse Network Systems. Mr. Arev holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, both cum laude.

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.

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.

Helmuth Freericks is an industry pioneer in the anti-malware field, having co-founded one of the earliest antivirus companies – Command Software --  in 1984, long before computers were ubiquitous, and before computer viruses were a household concept. At Command, Mr. Freericks served in various executive roles over the years, starting as Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Technology Officer, and finally as CEO before the company was acquired by Authentium in 2002. While at Authentium, he served as CEO of Global Risc, an Authentium subsidiary, and later as CTO and then Chief Science officer at Authentium. He joined Commtouch in 2010 with the acquisition of the Command division of Authentium, and serves as General Manager, Anti-Malware Solutions, bringing with him extensive anti-malware knowledge, as well as experience in managing all aspects of software product research, design, implementation and quality assurance.

Michael Myshrall joined Commtouch in 2011 as Vice President, Corporate Development. He brings to Commtouch two decades of investment banking, business development and technology experience. Prior to joining Commtouch, he focused on technology strategy, financial advisory and mergers and acquisitions, first with Mercator Capital and more recently with Trilos Ventures. Mr. Myshrall previously held various roles in business development, marketing, and engineering within companies such as Nortel, Newbridge Networks, Corvis, and Civcom.  Mr. Myshrall holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Wilson has more than 20 years of technology and communications experience, including more than 10 years of experience in the information security industry. Before joining Commtouch, Mr. Wilson lead portfolio management across product lines and drove multiple technology and service initiatives as vice president of product strategy for Trustwave. He subsequently restructured Trustwave’s strategic and tactical partnering approaches as vice president of global channels and business development.
Mr. Wilson also led product management, global business development and EMEA sales and marketing for Breach Security, a leading web application firewall vendor, and played a critical role in Breach’s acquisition by Trustwave.  He has also held business development, product management, strategy, and operations roles at Symantec. 
Prior to joining the information security industry, Brett was a technology policy lobbyist for Rockwell International and a market strategy consultant serving Bell Operating Companies. Mr. Wilson has a BA from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

Mr Ilouz has over 14 years of software development experience including extensive management of large global engineering teams.  Prior to joining Commtouch, Mr Ilouz was the R&D Director at HP Software with overall responsibility for planning, design, implementation and maintenance of the Business Service Management Platform and Service Intelligence products. At HP Mr Ilouz drove the release of several new products while overseeing a team of over 140 engineers spread across several countries.  Before HP, Mr Ilouz was the R&D manager of SiteScope at Mercury Interactive, which was acquired by HP.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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.

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.