Zohar Zisapel
Encyclopedia
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
in Israel’s advanced hi-tech industry. The RAD Group of companies he co-founded with his brother, Yehuda Zisapel, has been called "the world's most successful incubator" of telecom-related start-ups by Business 2.0
Business 2.0
Business 2.0 was a monthly magazine publication founded by magazine entrepreneur Chris Anderson, Mark Gross, and journalist James Daly in order to chronicle the rise of the "New Economy"...
magazine.
The Zisapels' RAD Group
Rad Group
The RAD Group is a collection of independent companies that develop, manufacture and market solutions for diverse segments of the networking and telecommunications industry....
of companies employ 3,500 people and closed 2008 with a total of $850 million in global sales. Five RAD Group companies are currently traded on the NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
stock exchange: RADVISION, Ceragon Networks, Radware , RADCOM, and Silicom.
Early life
Zisapel was born in Tel AvivTel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
, one of three children of immigrant parents from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
who owned and ran a shoe store on Herzl Street, then one of the city’s main arteries. He received a public education and upon graduation from high school he enrolled as a student at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
. He received his B.Sc and M.Sc in electrical engineering from the Technion and later earned an MBA from the Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
. To help finance his education, he worked in his spare time supplying lighting to Tel Aviv discos, eventually becoming the largest manufacturer of strobe lights in the country.
Following his undergraduate education at the Technion, Zisapel completed his compulsory service in the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
(IDF), after which he was hired by the Electronic Research Department of the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, ultimately serving as its head. He received the Israel Defense Prize in 1979 for his work.
Family
Zisapel is known throughout Israel’s business community for his penchant for wearing jeansJeans
Jeans are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for cowboys, became popular among teenagers. Historic brands include Levi's, Lee, and Wrangler...
and sandals while at work and his preference for flying economy while traveling abroad. He is the father of two children: a daughter, Klil, an accomplished artist and Hebrew writer whose books have been translated into German, Dutch and Chinese; and Michael, a physician.
Founding Bynet
In the mid 1970's, Yehuda Zisapel, Zohar's elder brother, founded a small private company that marketed data communications products. That one company, Bynet, would eventually become Israel’s leading system integrator and grow into a group of eight companies of its own.The data communications products Bynet distributed in Israel in the later half of the 1970s were all manufactured abroad. Though today Israel hosts more companies traded on NASDAQ than any other country apart from the United States, at that juncture in its history, Israel’s exports were disproportionately agricultural. The country had no home-grown, export-oriented hi-tech telecommunications industry. Undeterred by the fact that no venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
was then available in the country, the Zisapel brothers decided to try their luck by establishing an export-oriented company in Israel to manufacture the types of devices that Bynet had been distributing.
Founding RAD Data Communications
In 1981 Zohar Zisapel resigned from his position at the Ministry of Defense and, together with Yehuda, founded RAD Data CommunicationsRAD Data Communications
RAD Data Communications is a privately held corporation, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, that designs and manufacturers specialized networking equipment.RAD Data Communications is a member of the RAD Group of companies.-History:...
Ltd. Operating from small, cramped quarters in the back of Bynet’s offices, Zohar oversaw the development of RAD’s first product, a miniature modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
that would revolutionize the industry. The modems that were then on the market were the size of pizza boxes. RAD’s modem, however, could fit into one’s hand, and, remarkably, it did not require an independent power source, having been designed to operate instead by utilizing power flowing over the telephone line. One version of this modem, the SRM-3, would be recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest ever manufactured. Within two years of its founding, RAD had become a profitable international manufacturer of access solutions for data communications and telecommunications applications. In 1987 the company had reached $10 million in annual sales. RAD won the Israel Export Prize in 1993, the year in which its sales first exceeded $50 million. It surpassed the $100 million mark in global sales in 1996.
Creating the RAD Group
The Zisapel brothers had expanded their focus beyond miniature modems. While RAD would go on to release its first fiber optic product in 1986 and its first multiplexerMultiplexer
In electronics, a multiplexer is a device that selects one of several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line. A multiplexer of 2n inputs has n select lines, which are used to select which input line to send to the output...
one year later, the Zisapels were developing new ideas for communications products for enterprise applications - adapters for servers and security appliances; integrated network management
Network management
Network management refers to the activities, methods, procedures, and tools that pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networked systems....
solutions; video conferencing infrastructure and development tools; wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
devices, and other industry niches. But rather than follow the traditional industry paradigm by having their one existing company branch out into new areas beyond its original mandate, the Zisapels decided to found a new company that would focus on each specific industry niche they targeted. This approach grew into the RAD Group, a family of independent companies that develop, manufacture and market solutions for diverse segments of the networking
Telecommunications network
A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect together to enable telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections...
and telecommunications industry.
Business philosophy
What was unique about the Zisapels' business philosophy was that each company would operate independently, without a holding company, but all of the companies would be guided by them under a collective strategic umbrella. Companies may cooperate in the development of their solutions, engage in joint marketing activities and benefit from a common management structure. This decentralized business philosophy was designed to maximize the advantages inherent in smaller business units, such as flexibility, entrepreneurial spirit and management focus. As a result, since 1984, when the RAD Group came into being, it has spawned more than 185 companies, 8 IPOs and 19 mergers and acquisitions.Former members of the RAD Group include LANNET, which was sold to Madge Networks
Madge Networks
Madge Networks NV was a networking technology company founded by Robert Madge, and is best known for its work with Token Ring. It was a global leader and pioneer of high-speed networking solutions in the mid-1990s, and also made significant contributions to technologies such as Asynchronous...
in 1995 and then to Lucent in 1998; Armon, sold to Bay Networks
Bay Networks
Bay Networks was a network hardware vendor formed through the merger of Santa Clara, California based SynOptics Communications and Billerica, Massachusetts based Wellfleet Communications on July 6, 1994...
in 1996; RADNET, sold to Siemens and Newbridge in 1997; RADLINX, sold to VocalTec
VocalTec
VocalTec Communications Inc. , is an Israeli telecom equipment provider. The company was founded in 1989 by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty, who invented and patented the first Voice over IP audio transceiver...
in 1998; RADWIZ, sold to Terayon
Terayon
Terayon Communication Systems, Inc. was a company that vended equipment to broadband service providers for delivering broadband voice, video and data services to residential and business subscribers.-History:...
Communications in 1999; RADLAN
Radlan
RADLAN computer communications LTD. , is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marvell Technology Group, that specializes in LAN networking technologies.-Products:The RADLAN's core technology, Open and Portable Embedded...
, sold to Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an American producer of storage, communications and consumer semiconductor products.Founded in 1995, Marvell Technology Group Ltd. has operations worldwide and approximately 5,700 employees. Marvell’s U.S. operating subsidiary is based in Santa Clara, California and Marvell has...
in 2003; and RND, sold to USR Electronics in 2003.
Corporate values
Zisapel has stated that he views corporate citizenship as a central element in RAD’s work ethic. Given the company's leadership role in the telecommunications industry, he believes that the company should serve a leadership role in developing and funding innovative programs that benefit the community around it. In order to support higher education, for example, RAD awards dozens of scholarships each year to outstanding university students majoring in engineering and computer science who otherwise would be unable to finance the full costs of their tuition. In a typical year, fifty such scholarships, worth over $250,000, are allocated.Charitable work
Nanoelectronics
Nanoelectronics refer to the use of nanotechnology on electronic components, especially transistors. Although the term nanotechnology is generally defined as utilizing technology less than 100 nm in size, nanoelectronics often refer to transistor devices that are so small that inter-atomic...
Center at their alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
, the Technion, named in memory of their parents.
Awards and honors
- 1994 - Israel Export Award and Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
- 1996 - Hugo Raminceanu Award for Economics.
- 1998 - Nominated by the Technion as a Distinguished Fellow of its Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
- 1998-2000 - Chairman of the Israel Association of Electronic Industries (IAEI).
- 1999 - Israeli Industry Life Award.
- 2001 - Doctor Honoris Causa from the Technion.
- 2004 - Israel Communications Award.
- On its Web site, the Technion lists Zohar Zisapel as one of its most illustrious alumni.
External links
- VON Magazine - Front cover story, May 2007
- Zohar Zisapel on the 2007 Chairmen's Committee - by The Computerworld Honors Program
- 'The Bill Gates of Israel', an Interview with Zohar Zisapel - by Innovations Publishing, 19 November 2003
- 25 Years of RAD Group: A Conversation with Zohar Zisapel - by Mae Kowalke, TMCnet, May 22, 2006.
- Zisapel Zings Innovating Incumbents - by Light Reading, including a video interview, May 15, 2006.
- NASDAQ.com - Zohar Zisapel and Mr. Boaz Raviv, CEO of Radvision Ltd., hosting the Market Close, 8 May 2006
- Solving an Israeli high tech riddle - by Allison Kaplan Sommer, Israel21c, February 26, 2006.
- 'Insightz' with Zohar Zisapel - by Telecom Redux, 28 March 2005
- Intel Invests in Wisair - by Unstrung.com, 21 April 2004
- RAD Group Chairman Zohar Zisapel to Speak at VITAL Summit - by Fred Diamond, September 22, 2002
- Why universities don't capitalize on research - HaaretzHaaretzHaaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
article by Zohar Zisapel, 28 December 2006 - Officer Profile - Brief Biography by Reuters
- Video Conference Now or Never? - a recorded lecture of Zohar Zisapel on Blip TV
- Israel 21C Zohar Zisapel, the RAD dad of the world's telecom industry