About Me

I am a senile technocrat with numerous grandchildren

Ed is the Founder and Chairman of Gemini Israel Funds. In 1993, he was asked to manage the first VC fund to emerge from the Israeli government’s Yozma program. Aimed at prompting venture investments in Israel, Yozma transformed the domestic landscape of venture capital investments. Over a period of three years, the Group established ten drop-down funds of which Gemini was the first.

From 1979 until 1993, Ed was Executive Director of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD). During his tenure, he was responsible for investments of $100 million in more than 300 joint projects between U.S. and Israeli high technology companies.

From 1974 to 1979, Ed was Executive Vice President of Mobil Tyco Solar Energy Corporation, a joint venture created by Mobil Corporation and Tyco Laboratories Inc. to develop and commercialize a novel photovoltaic technology initiated under Ed's direction at Tyco, a company of which he was a co-founder in 1960. Tyco (now Tyco International, Inc., NYSE) had 2005 revenues of over $40 billion. Until 1974, Ed was a member of its Board of Directors and its Chief Technical Officer. In 1973, he became President and Chief Operating Officer.

Ed has a First Class Honors B.Sc. degree in Chemistry (1950) and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1953) from Queen Mary College, University of London. His publications include 53 scientific and technical papers, and 24 patents (plus many foreign applications).

Immediately prior to coming to Israel, he was a member of the U.S.-Israel Advisory Council on Industrial R&D, and a member of the Board of Visitors to the School of Engineering at Duke University. In 1989, he was elected a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. In 1994, he was awarded the degree of Doctor Scientarium Technicarum Honoris Causa by the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

In April 2003, Ed received the Israel High-Tech Award from the Israel Venture Association, in recognition of his unique contribution to the development of the Israel high tech industry. Ed is the Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Israel.

Ed is considered a founder of Israeli hi-tech and was recently recognized by the Israeli business press as one of the five most influential people in the Israeli hi-tech industry. He is a much sought after world-class speaker and lectures at hi-tech and private equity events.