IVN Board

Isabel Maxwell

Benny is currently Chairman of dbMotion’s Board of Directors. Before joining dbMotion, Mr. Levin co-founded NICE Systems, a world leader in multimedia digital recording solutions for business interaction management. Mr. Levin served as NICE's President & Director and as its Chairman & CEO. Prior to founding NICE, Mr. Levin served in the Israel Defense Forces where he held various positions in Military Intelligence and was awarded the Chief of Intelligence Award for Creative Thinking, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Benny Chairman of IVN's Economic Reconstruction Initiative (IERI) and is the former Chair of IVN's Education Initiative Steering Committee.

Bernie is the Principal of Belkin Capital, which raises capital for investment in retail and real estate projects. He was the Managing Director of California Israel Angels, a group of high tech executives who provide members with investment opportunities in Israeli early-stage high tech Companies and assist with market validation, capital raising & business development. Previously, Mr. Belkin was a consultant to early-stage high tech companies, and was the founder and CEO of Trans Continental Marketing, a direct mail business. He served as the International Sales/Marketing Manager at Hewlett-Packard, worked at Motorola Israel, and as Product Manager at HP. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Technion Society, Interplast, and the San Jose Federation. Mr. Belkin has a BSEE from Georgia Tech and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Yael is Managing Director of the Israel liaison office of Mintz Levin, a US law firm. Prior to joining Mintz Levin, Yael served as a corporate attorney for Koor Industries, Inc., an Israeli company publicly traded on the NYSE, and for Menora Gaon Capital Markets Group. Yael has also practiced as a litigation attorney at Dr. J. Weinroth & Co., and for the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED), a non-governmental organization advocating environmental issues. Yael received her LL.B. and post bachelor degree in Economics from Tel Aviv University (1991). Yael completed mediation training from the Israel Center for Negotiation and Conflict Management (ICN) (1998).

Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of GigOptix, Inc.
Dr. Avi Katz has served as the Chairman of the board of directors, Chief Executive Officer & President of GigOptix LLC and GigOptix, Inc. since he co-founded them in May 2007 and in September 2007, respectively. GigOptix, Inc. was founded to facilitate the merger of GigOptix LLC and Lumera Corporation in December 2008, at which point they both became subsidiaries of GigOptix, Inc. Since the merger he has served as the Chairman of the board of directors, Chief Executive Officer & President of GigOptix, Inc. Dr. Katz also served as a board member, Chief Executive Officer and President of iTerra Communications LLC, the predecessor to GigOptix LLC, from April 2007 until July 2007. Dr. Katz also serves as the Chairman of the board of directors of GigOptix-Helix AG, GigOptix Israel Ltd., Lumera Corporation and Endwave Corporation, which are wholly-owned subsidiaries of GigOptix, Inc. Earlier on, Dr. Katz was the Chief Executive Officer & President and a board member of Intransa, Inc., from 2003 to 2005, and Equator Technologies, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company, from 2000 to 2003. Prior to this he served in few sales, marketing and operational executive positions and was Member of the Technical Staff in AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, between 1988 and 1995. He holds numerous U.S. and international patents, has published about 300 technical papers and is the editor of a number of technical books. Dr. Katz received his Ph.D. in materials engineering and a B.S. in engineering from Technion-IIT, Israel, and is a graduate of the Israeli Naval Academy.  

Isabel Maxwell is a Technology Pioneer of the World Economic Forum and is president emerita of Commtouch Software Ltd. (nasdaq:CTCH); she is co-founder of the Magellan On-Line Guide, the pioneering directory and search engine portal that she successfully negotiated the acquisition of by Excite in 1996. Magellan was one of the most visited sites on the internet. She has been involved in multiple Israel enterprises and organizations over the years, including as senior adviser to Muhammad Yunus' Grameen America (2007-2009);  HaHevra LeHaganat Hateva, the 'Sierra Club' of Israel; Soroka Hospital of the Negev (2001-present) and has been a long time Governor of the Board of the Peres Center For Peace and the American Friends of Rabin.  She was executive Chair of the Social Entrepreneur Fellowship program of IVN from 2004-2010 and continues actively to impact the Social Enterprise space in Israel.  She passionately believes in the power of individuals to make a difference.  She became a full member of the Board of IVN in 2008.  Isabel is French-born and Oxford educated and has divided her time during the last 15 years between Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Israel.

David, a retired PricewaterhouseCoopers senior partner, is actively involved with a number of charitable organizations where he serves on the boards and finance committees. While at PWC, he held numerous senior management roles including responsibility for global products and services and international tax networks while serving on the firm’s Global Tax Board. He has been audit chair of a public company as well as on the advisory boards of private companies in the Bay Area. Additionally, he was Senior Director at the Wharton School’s Executive Education program in San Francisco. David has degrees from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, and the New York University Graduate School of Law.

Richard Saperstein has 30 years experience on Wall Street, and is Managing Director/Principal and Senior Portfolio Manager with TREASURY PARTNERS. He is widely acknowledged for his investment expertise and, since 2004, has ranked in the top tier of Barron’s annual survey of “America’s Top 100 Financial Advisors.”

In 2011, Barron’s ranked him eighth on that survey, third in New York State on its survey of the top 1,000 financial advisors, and ninth among the country’s “Top 100 Independent Wealth Managers.”

Mr. Saperstein has been profiled in The Winner’s Circle: Wealth Management Insights from America’s Best Financial Advisors, and has been featured in or provided commentary for such publications as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Forbes, Smart Money, Kiplinger’s, Research Magazine, Financial Week, and TheStreet.com.

He has also authored articles for Financial Executive Magazine and has been invited to speak at conferences sponsored by such groups as the Association for Financial Professionals, and Tiburon Strategic Advisors.

Mr. Saperstein began his career in 1982, and established the corporate cash management practice at Oppenheimer & Company in 1988. In 2003, he and his team established and ran the corporate cash management practice at Bear Stearns, which was acquired by J.P. Morgan in 2008. In 2009, Mr. Saperstein and his team left Bear/J.P. Morgan to launch TREASURY PARTNERS, an independent investment advisory firm.

Mr. Saperstein supervises 15 investment and portfolio management professionals. He and his team deliver a broad array of wealth management and corporate cash management services to clients located in the United States and international jurisdictions.

Mr. Saperstein earned his MBA at New York University. He is conversant in Italian, and is an avid salt and freshwater fisherman.