Itzhak Nissan, president and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, announced this morning his intent to retire on October 31st 2012, after seven years of service in this capacity. Notification to this effect was provided by Nissan to IAI's board of directors, headed by Dov Baharav.
"During my term as the president of IAI" says Nissan, "the company underwent a cultural change, emphasizing business orientation, innovation and maintaining a technological advantage, focusing on initiation of large scale systems projects. This new orientation transformed the business results of the company".
Nissan added that "the company has significantly changed the profile of its human resources, reflecting its transformation to a leading Israeli high tech company. In this term IAI hired about 4,000 new employees, a large portion of which are engineers and scientists, and in parallel the company funded the early retirement of about 1,600 employees.
IAI became a reporting company following bonds issuing in the Tel Aviv stock market.
New markets have opened to IAI and to Israel, leading to expansion of new orders and diversification of IAI's traditional markets. One example reflecting this is a very large contract that was announced today, which will further enlarge the company's backlog".
Referring to this new contract, Nissan said: "Today we signed a large contract with a country in Asia, for about $1.1B. This contract is the product of business initiative oriented toward creating large contracts that will enable to continue the growth of IAI. The current contract and several other similar contracts signed lately have created an all time record backlog for IAI."
Nissan added: "I have great personal satisfaction from the achievements of IAI, and from the opportunity that I've had to contribute many years toward fortification of Israel's military and economical security. I joined this great company as a junior engineer and have served in a long series of appointments up to the president and CEO of IAI, and I see IAI as the leading company of the Israeli defense industries."
IAI Chairman of the Board, Dov Baharav said: "I am deeply appreciative of Itzhak Nissan's accomplishments and his significant contribution to IAI throughout his 30 years of service and 7 years as President and CEO. This level of activity has advanced the company to its current achievements. I wish him success in the new professional path that he will decide on".
In the picture:
Mr. Itzhak Nissan, IAI's President & CEO
For further details, please contact:
Doron Suslik
Deputy Corporate VP of Communications
Tel: +972-3-935-8509
Fax: +972-3-935-8512
Email: hpaz@iai.co.il