About Evogene

Ofer Haviv

President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Ofer Haviv holds the position of Evogene’s President and CEO as of late 2004. Prior to that he held the positions of company COO and CFO from 2002 to 2004 and was involved in Evogene’s spin-off from Compugen in 2002. At Compugen, he held the position of Director of Finance and Treasurer of Compugen (NASDAQ: CGEN) for four years, during which time the company completed two private placements and an IPO on NASDAQ

Mr. Haviv holds a B.A. degree in Economics and Accounting from Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University and is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel.

Dr. Nir Arbel

Chief Product Officer

Dr. Nir Arbel was appointed as Chief Product Officer in August, 2021. Dr. Arbel has over ten years of experience in Biotech and MedTech companies in product development and commercialization. Prior to joining Evogene, Dr. Arbel served as CEO and Co-Founder of Carmentix Pte Ltd, Singapore, a company focused on high risk pregnancy prognosis. Prior to that, Dr. Arbel served as the Operating Partner in Esco Ventures, a MedTech fund based in Singapore.

Dr. Arbel holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Ben Gurion University.

Yaron Eldad

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Yaron Eldad was appointed as CFO in April 2022, having filled various CFO positions over the last 25 years in public and private technology and biotechnology companies, including Yamba Group Int. Ltd., Recoly NV, and e-Sim Ltd.

Mr. Eldad holds a B.A. in Economics and Accounting from the Ben-Gurion University, Israel, an Executive MBA in Strategic Management from the Hebrew University, Israel, and an M.A. in law from the Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Liat Foigel Wejgman

Vice President Human Resources

Ms. Liat Foigel Wejgman was appointed Vice President Human Resources in January 2022, previously serving as Director of Human Resources from 2018. Ms. Foigel Wejgman joined Evogene in 2015 and has held various positions in the company over the years. Prior to joining Evogene Ms. Foigel Wejgman worked in human resource positions at an online trading leading company.

Ms. Foigel Wejgman holds a B.A. degree in Social Science with a major in Technological Marketing from Sapir College.

Mark Kapel

Chief Technology Officer

Mr. Kapel was appointed as Chief Technology Officer in 2018, previously serving as Director of Information Technologies & Data Management from 2013. Mr. Kapel joined Evogene in 2005 and has held various positions in the company over the years.

Mr. Kapel holds a B.Sc. in Physics & Computers from the Ben Gurion University of Negev, an MBA majoring in Management of Technology from Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Management – Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration.

Sassi Masliah

Vice President Corporate Development

Mr. Sassi Masliah was appointed as Vice President Corporate Development in February 2022. Mr. Masliah has held various positions within Evogene since 2011, most recently as Evogene’s Vice President for Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary.

Mr. Masliah holds an LL.B. and B.A. in economics from the Tel-Aviv University.

Eyal Ronen

Executive Vice President of Business Development

Mr. Eyal Ronen was appointed as Executive Vice President of Business Development of Evogene in June 2022. Mr. Ronen has over 20 years of extensive business development experience in biotech companies. Mr. Ronen’s prior experience includes Vice President of Business Development at TransAlgae, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development at Fotonica, VP of Sales at STK Bio Ag Technologies, CTO and Co-Founder at Seanovo, Growth Department Manager at Gadot, and Director of South America at Haifa Chemicals.

Mr. Ronen holds a B.Sc in Agronomy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an M.Sc. in Agronomy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MBA from Haifa University.

Sarit Firon

Chairperson of the Board

Ms. Sarit Firon after joining Evogene’s  Board of Directors in 2016, has been appointed as the Chairperson effective August 10^th 2021.
Ms. Firon is a partner of the Team8 Group and managing partner of Team8 Capital, the investment arm of the group, which invests in and builds technology startups. Ms. Firon also serves as a Director on the Board of Perion Network Ltd. (NASDAQ: PERI). Previously, she was the managing partner of Cerca Partners, a Venture Capital, co-investment fund; Chief Executive Officer of Extreme Reality (XTR3D), a company that provides real time software-based, 3D motion capture technology, using a single standard webcam; held roles as Chief Financial Officer at each of Kenshoo, MediaMind (NSDQ: MDMD, acquired by DG corp.), Olive Software, P-Cube (acquired by Cisco) and Radcom. (NSDQ: RDCM).

Ms. Firon holds a BA degree in accounting and economics, and a Diploma in accounting advanced studies, both from Tel Aviv University.

Mr. Dan Falk

Board Member

Mr. Dan Falk joined Evogene’s Board of Directors in November 2021 and has extensive experience of more than 20 years in serving as a financial expert on public and private company boards, most recently on the boards of Nice Ltd. (NASDAQ: NICE), Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA) and Innoviz Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INVZ). Additionally, in the past Mr. Falk held various executive positions in Orbotech Ltd. and Sapiens International Corporation (NASDAQ: SPNS).

Mr. Falk holds a BA in Economics and Political Science, and an MA in Business Administration both from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Adrian Percy

Board Member

Dr. Adrian Percy has served as Evogene director since February 2019. Dr. Percy serves on the board of directors of BioLumic, HiFidelity Genetics and Biotalys. He is a member of the science and technology boards of Terramera, Biotalys and Rothamsted Research. Dr. Percy currently serves as the CTO of UPL Ltd., is a venture partner with Finistere Ventures and frequently acts as an advisor to companies through his own consultancy company, Nomad Technology Consulting. Previously, Dr. Percy served as the head of research and development for the Crop Science division of Bayer as part of its executive committee. During his 16-year tenure at Bayer, he also led crop protection development activities for Bayer in North America and regulatory affairs activities across the entire division of Crop Science. Dr. Percy has held positions in the research and development departments of Rhone Poulenc, Aventis CropScience and Bayer in France, Germany and the United States.

Dr. Percy earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology at the University of Liverpool, as well as a master’s degree in toxicology and a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Birmingham.

Leon Recanati

Board Member

Mr. Leon Y. Recanati has served as Evogene director since 2005. Mr. Recanati has served as chairman and chief executive officer of GlenRock Israel Ltd., his private investment company, investing since 2003 in Venture Capital and private equity companies. Previously, Mr. Recanati was chief executive officer and/or chairman of IDB Holding Corporation; Clal Industries Ltd.; Azorim Investment Development and Construction Co Ltd.; Delek Israel Fuel Corporation; and Super-Sol Ltd. He also founded Clal Biotechnologies Industries Ltd., a biotechnology investment company operating in Israel.

Mr. Recanati is a member of the board of directors of Kamada Ltd. ,of Rainbow Medical and active in education and health endeavors through several NGO’s  .

Mr. Recanati holds an MBA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Honorary Doctorates from the Technion Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University.

Prof. Oded Shoseyov

Board Member

Prof. Oded Shoseyov has served as Evogene director since 2018. Prof. Shoseyov is the scientific founder of 15 companies, including: Futuragene Ltd., Collplant Ltd., Biobetter Ltd., GemmaCert Ltd., SP-Nano materials Ltd., Melodea Ltd., Valentis Nanotech. Ltd., Paulee CleanTec Ltd., Smart Resilin Ltd., Sensogenic Ltd., SavorEat Ltd, Daika, Ltd, Neswell Group Ltd and Karme Yosef Winery. Prof. Shoseyov is a faculty member of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he conducts research in plant molecular biology protein engineering and nano-biotechnology. His group focus is on Bio-Inspired Nanocomposite materials. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 scientific publications and is the inventor or co-inventor of 65 patents. Prof. Shoseyov is a TED speaker and a co-owner and winemaker of BRAVDO winery. Prof. Shoseyov received the Outstanding Scientist Polak Award for 2002, the 1999 and 2010 Kay Award for Innovative and Applied Research, the 2012 Israel Prime Minister Citation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and the 2018 Presidential Award for his contribution to the Economy and Society of Israel.

Prof. Shoseyov holds a BSc from the Hebrew University, MSc from the Hebrew University, and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University.

Nir Nimrodi

Board Member

Mr. Nir Nimrodi has served as Special Advisor to the Evogene board since 2020.
Mr. Nimrodi brings 25 years of diverse international experience in both start-ups and large global businesses in the life science, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries.
Mr. Nimrodi is the Chairman and CEO of Accellix Inc since June 2019. Accellix aims to set a new standard in QC of Cell and Gene Therapies.
Prior to joining Accellix, Mr. Nimrodi served as the Chief Business Officer of Intrexon Corporation, a leader in synthetic biology. At Intrexon, Mr. Nimrodi held direct responsibility for all of the commercial stage enterprises. Mr. Nimrodi has led the transformation of Intrexon from an R&D organization to one with multiple products in the market, each with the potential of generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Prior to Intrexon, Mr. Nimrodi has held positions with Life Technologies, Proneuron Biotechnologies, Mindsense Biosystems and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Nimrodi holds a BA in Economics and an MBA from the Tel Aviv University.

Prof. Avraham Levy, Chairman of the scientific advisory board

Prof. Avraham Levy is the Head of the Plant Science Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Prof. Levy heads a laboratory studying mechanisms that contribute to the accelerated evolution of plant genomes, such as transposons, DNA damages, DNA recombination and genome duplications. He works on wheat, Arabidopsis tomato and budding yeast. Prof. Levy is the president of the Genetic Society of Israel, he served as the chairman of the Israeli Graminae consortium and on several national and international granting agencies panels. He is an ERC fellow and has lead scientific projects as coordinator for an EU consortium and for an Israeli Center of Research Excellence.

Prof. Levy holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. degree from the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from the Department of Plant Genetics of the Weizmann Institute of Science. His post-doctoral research was done at Stanford University.

Prof. Naama Barkai

Prof. Naama Barkai is a professor in the departments of Molecular Genetics and Physics of Complex Systems at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and a member of of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), the ERC Starting Grant evaluation panel, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Academia Europaea, and of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Prof. Naama Barkai received her PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1995 from the Hebrew University where she Graduated Summa Cum Laude in the studies of “Statistical Mechanicsof Learning“. Her Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Physics Department, Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey focused on Theoretical Study of Biochemical Networks.

Prof. Barkai lab research is focused at the interface between mathematics and biology and understanding the biological constraints that are imposed on a particular system, and the impact of those constraints on the structural design of the network while developing novel solutions for fundamental biological problems such as nutrient homeostasis systems  and the organization of the cellular transcription programs.

Prof. Eran Segal

Prof. Eran Segal is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, heading a lab with a multi-disciplinary team of computational biologists and experimental scientists in the area of Computational and Systems Biology. His group has extensive experience in machine learning, computational biology, and analysis of heterogeneous high-throughput genomic data. His research focuses on Microbiome, Nutrition, Genetics, and their effect on health and disease. His aim is to develop personalized medicine based on big data from human cohorts.

Prof. Segal published over 180 publications, and received several awards and honors for his work, including the Overton prize, awarded annually by the International Society for Bioinformatics (ICSB) to one scientist for outstanding accomplishments in computational biology, and the Michael Bruno award. He was also elected as an EMBO member and as a member of the young Israeli academy of science. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Segal developed models for analyzing the dynamics of the pandemic and served as an advisor to the government of Israel.

Before joining the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Segal held an independent research position at Rockefeller University, New York.

Prof. Segal was awarded a B.Sc. in Computer Science summa cum laude in 1998, from Tel-Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Genetics in 2004, from Stanford University.