Gabi Hilevitz, CEO
Gabi is a 30-year veteran of the telecommunications and semiconductor industries, having spent 11 years with DSPC and Intel in a wide range of general management, sales, marketing and technical roles. At Intel he co-managed the Cellular Communications Division design engineering group, where he was responsible for all product development activities including chips, software and systems. Prior to that Gabi served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of DSPC Technologies, a developer of chipset solutions for the cellular handset industry that was acquired by Intel in 1999. Prior to joining DSPC, Gabi held a variety of engineering and engineering management positions at Tadiran Communication Group. Gabi holds a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering gained at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel.

William (Bill) Simmelink - President North American Operations

Bill is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in management, sales, marketing and business development in high-tech companies. He joined CopperGate from Texas Instruments where he was General Manager of the Packet Voice and Video Business Unit responsible for all aspects of the business, including P&L, silicon and software products, engineering and marketing. Under his leadership, the business experienced robust growth, positioning TI as the industry’s leading supplier of Voice-over-IP products. Before Texas Instruments, Bill served as Vice President of Business Development and Vice President of Sales at Telogy Networks, one of the industry’s pioneers and strongest players in Voice-over-IP, acquired by Texas Instruments in 1999. Bill received a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Indiana’s Purdue University.

Nurit Benjamini - CFO

Nurit Benjamini joined CopperGate in 2007 bringing over fifteen years of experience in the Israeli and international economic field. Prior to joining CopperGate, between 2000 and 2007, Ms. Benjamini served as CFO of Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a world leader in the discovery and licensing of product candidates to the drug and diagnostic industry where, as CFO, she managed among others a private placement and the company's IPO on August 2000. Prior to Compugen, Ms. Benjamini served as CFO at Phone-Or Ltd. Between 1993 and 1998, Ms. Benjamini was CFO at Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALDN). Ms. Benjamini holds a B.A. in Economics and Business and an MBA in Finance, both from Bar Ilan University, Israel.

Zuri Guzikevitch - VP R&D

Zuri is an expert in communication systems, broadband access systems and ASIC development with more than 26 years of experience in managing large R&D teams. Prior to joining CopperGate, Zuri was Associate VP at ECI Telecommunications, where he managed broadband xDSL R&D. Earlier, Zuri held a variety of engineering and engineering management positions at Teledata Communication, Comverse and Tadiran Communication Group. Zuri holds a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering cum laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey.

Rami Verbin -  CTO

Rami brings to CopperGate 24 years of experience, most of them in the broadband networking and telecommunications industry. Prior to joining CopperGate, Rami held a VP R&D position and a number of program management positions in a leading semiconductor and system companies like STMicroelectronics and Orckit. Rami has been an active contributor to the evolution of the ADSL and VDSL standards from their very early days and holds patents in a variety of communication technologies. He holds an MSc. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in finance, both from the Tel-Aviv University. 
 

Richard Nesin - VP Marketing
Richard brings to CopperGate more than 25 years of marketing experience in the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining CopperGate, Richard was Senior Manager of Strategy and Business Development at Agere Systems, where he supported the 802.11 Wireless LAN, Home Networking, Bluetooth, and Optical Transponder product lines. Richard was earlier Senior Manager of Strategy and Applications, where he created and directed Agere’s industry-leading Storage IC product line. Prior to joining Agere, Richard held a variety of marketing and engineering positions at Standard Microsystems, Applied Digital Data Systems and Climatronics Corp. He is also President of the HomePNA Alliance. Richard holds a B.S.E.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from State University of New York at Stony Brook.

David Baum - Co-founder and VP Business Development, North America

David has more than 14 years of experience in management and development of digital signal processing and data communications. Prior to founding CopperGate, David spent six years with Orckit Communications, a major developer of xDSL chips and solutions, as a senior SW and DSP engineer in the company’s VDSL and ADSL projects, overseeing interoperability tests with several ADSL vendors, and leading the software team of the DSL LITE / G.Lite modem. David holds a B.Sc. degree cum laude in Electrical Engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel.

Rami Kopelman - VP Business Development Europe and Asia

Rami brings to CopperGate more than 16 years of experience in management, sales, marketing and business development in high-tech companies. Prior to joining CopperGate, Rami was VP of Sales, Marketing and Business Development for ImageID Ltd’s Visidot Division, a leader in Automatic Identification and Data Capture technology. Prior to joining ImageID, he was Founder and CEO of Tiaris Inc., a fabless semiconductor company that developed and marketed communication system-on-chip solutions for residence-wide distribution and networking of multimedia content. Earlier, he was VP of worldwide sales for Metalink (NASDAQ: MTLK), a leading provider of broadband communication solutions and chipsets where he spearheaded the company’s sales expansion and product direction. Rami holds a B.Sc. degree cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from Tel Aviv University.

Nadav Katsir - VP Sales & Support, North America

Nadav joined CopperGate in 2002 as Directors of Sales and Support. He was instrumental in the establishment of CopperGate’s foothold in the North American market. Nadav brings to CopperGate extensive knowledge and experience in software development for packet telephony. He has over 10 years of technical sales experience that includes both the U.S. and international markets. Nadav holds a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, and a degree in Information Systems from the University of California, Berkeley.

Israel Lifshitz - Co-founder and Director of VLSI and Hardware Design

Israel is an expert in digital signal processing and data communications, with special expertise on digital hardware and VLSI design gained during his 20 years in the field. Prior to founding CopperGate, Israel spent eight years with Orckit Communications, a major developer of xDSL chips and solutions, in a variety of engineering and engineering management positions. As a systems engineer at Orckit, he was responsible for the definition, architecture and implementation of the company’s ADSL chipset. Earlier, Israel served as a Project Manager at Orbot Systems. Israel holds a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, and an LL.B. degree from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.