Gossip

The Israeli telecom equipment maker ECI Telecom http://www.ecitele.com named Giora Bitan as executive VP and CFO, effective August 1, 2002. Giora will report to ECI’s CEO overseeing ECI’s non-core business units and will be in charge of ECI’s finance, operations, logistics and administration.
For over 14 years, until 1996, Giora giora.bitan@ecitele.com  served in senior management positions at Scitex, both in Israel and in the USA. Nine of those years as Executive Corporate VP and CFO. During the past five years he was a general partner at Giza Venture Capital, a leading Israeli venture capital firm, where he focused on investments in the communications and software sectors.
ECI Telecom (NASDAQ:ECIL) is a provider of advanced, telecommunications solutions. Focused mainly on the metropolitan optical and access markets, ECI enables service providers and carriers world-wide to maximize their capital investment and reduce operating expenses while providing voice, data, video and multimedia services to their customers.

Hana Ben-Shabat hana.ben-shabat@atkearney.com was promoted to Principal with A.T. Kearney in London. Hana left Scitex in 1998 after 3 years as the marketing director in STE.
The London based A.T. Kearney http://www.atkearney.com is a global management consulting firm and a business unit of the American company EDS.

Amir Lehr amirl@powerdsine.com has served as VP Marketing of PowerDsine Ltd. since 1997. From 1993 to 1997, he was a specialist?s group manager at Scitex America, responsible for customer support on the U.S. East Coast and in Latin America. From 1990 to 1993, he worked at the Israeli Ministry of Defense Mission to New York as a senior technological researcher. From 1985 to 1990, he served in the technology unit of the Israeli Defense Forces Intelligence Corps as senior project manager for large communications systems. Amir is a founding member of the IEEE 802.3af Task Force leading the development of an industry standard for remotely powering Ethernet devices over the LAN infrastructure.
The Hod-Hasharon based PowerDsine Ltd. www.powerdsine.com expertise is in Power over LANTM technology providing the ability to deliver both power and data over a single network cable. PowerDsine?s product line offers a variety of Power over LAN midspan devices as well as integrated solutions, which are embedded directly into Ethernet switches.

Gadi Amit, is the president and co-founder of New Deal Design LLC gadi@newdealdesign.com . Gadi was

Eldad

The Israeli-founded company is considered the market leader in software for the oil and gas exploration industry.

Europe’s Apax Partners and JMI Equity of the US will pay some $1 billion for the Israeli-founded Paradigm Geophysical developer of software for the oil and gas exploration industry.

“It is exciting for Paradigm to team up with Apax and JMI, With their backing, Paradigm is ready to further accelerate its top line and market share growth and capitalize on the opportunities its market position and leading technologies present,” said Eldad Weiss, Chief Executive Officer of Paradigm.

The ExScite Eldad Weiss founded the company in Herzliya in 1987. In 2002, Fox Paine paid $100 million for the software vendor.

Paradigm’s software solutions are leaders in the marketplace. Its software enables engineers to optimize drilling and production decisions through the analysis of vast quantities of seismic and well-log data, spanning the entire spectrum of the exploration and production lifecycle from basin evaluation through to development and production.

“Paradigm has invested considerable time and money in developing market-leading intellectual property, and employs many of the leading scientists and software engineers in the sector. As such, it is well-placed to benefit from strong tailwinds in the coming years as energy companies look to drill in more challenging locations,” said Ian Jones, a senior Partner at Apax and head of the Energy team. “The software it provides is the best in the market, leading to strong, established relationships with its customers and underpinning an attractive business model.”

Hadar Himmelman hadarh@maxbill.com is the chairwoman of MaxBill. Hadar was 6 years with Scitex. Hadar and Micha Himmelman founded MaxBill in 1997.
Also with MaxBill is Vladimir Mitrasinovic vladm@maxbill.com who?s the Managing Director EMEA, working from the UK office. Vladimir was 7 years with Scitex.
Based in Petah-Tikva Israel, the startup MaxBill www.maxbill.com is a provider of Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) solutions. The company?s products combine a billing engine with Customer Relationship Management. Investors are: p3 Technology Partners BV and Azritech.

After seven years as a marcom and PR Manager at Scitex Europe Charlotte Gutman charlotte@cgp.be founded and is the Managing Director of C.G.P Europe.
Founded in 1991 in Brussels Belgium, C.G.P Europe http://www.cgp.be is a European public relations and marketing communication company. CGP’s European team of multilingual PR specialists has helped the European launch of a number of companies, including Israeli companies.

Anat Jacoby Ph.D. anatj@experteam.co.il has founded and is the managing director of ExperTeam In Israel. Prior to ExperTeam, Anat has been a freelance consulting working with many hi-tech companies including Scitex, CreoScitex, Mercury,Precise s/w and others. Anat has started her instructional design career in Israel spending 3 years with the Scitex Training department.
ExperTeam www.experteam.co.il provides technical training development and technical writing services. The company?s services include: Consulting and needs assessment, course development and implementation on any media including: Training presentations, Multimedia (CBT, WBT), eLearning, Instructor and student guides, Professional technical trainers, Complete eLearning implementation and Technical writing services.

David Guterzon david@nessicom.com is VP R&D and co-founder of Nessicom

Zehava Vardi zvardi@cosmocom.com has been appointed Area VP Engineering at CosmoCom. Prior to joining CosmoCom, she was Software Group Manager at NICE where she was responsible for the CLS (Contact Logging System) product. Earlier she had spent 10 years in management and R&D roles at Scitex in Herzlia, focusing on Digital printing applications.
Based in Melville, NY, CosmoCom www.cosmocom.com is a provider of all-IP, universal access contact-center platforms. The company designs and markets systems for contact-center applications, including support to multi-channel customer interactions via telephone and Internet, live and message-based, fixed and wireless.