Passionate Leadership

Great companies start with great leaders and CopperGate is no exception. We bring the best and the brightest from around the world together to create a strong, knowledgeable and helpful leadership team.

Gabi Hilevitz, Chief Executive Officer 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 from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, Israel.

William (Bill) Simmelink - President Bill is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in management, sales, marketing and business development in the high-tech industry. He joined CopperGate from Texas Instruments where he was General Manager of the Packet Voice and Video Business Unit where he was responsible for all aspects of the business, including P&L, silicon and software products, as well as 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 - Chief Financial Officer Nurit joined CopperGate in 2007 bringing over 15 years of experience in the Israeli and international economic field. Prior to joining CopperGate, between 2000 and 2007, Nurit 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. As CFO, she managed a private placement and the company's IPO in August of 2000. Prior to Compugen, Nurit served as CFO at Phone-Or Ltd. Between 1993 and 1998, Nurit was CFO at Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALDN). Nurit holds a B.A. in Economics and Business and an MBA in Finance, both from Bar Ilan University, Israel.

David Baum - Co-founder and Vice President of Worldwide Marketing David has 17 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 for the company's VDSL and ADSL projects. He oversaw Orckit Communications interoperability tests with several ADSL vendors, and lead 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.

Tsach Shwartz - Vice President of Research and Development Tsach joined CopperGate in 2008 and brings 15 years of network communications design experience. Previously, he was VP R&D of Alvarion, the leading supplier of WiMax solutions where he managed a 200-person engineering team across three continents. Tsach was employee number 3 at Alvarion and helped grow the company to over 3 million units in 150 countries by introducing the first wireless LAN product, the first WiMAX BWA system and one of the first Mobile WiMAX end-to-end solutions. Prior to Alvarion, he served in the R&D department of the IDF. He has a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of New Haven, Connecticut.

Rami Verbin - Chief Technical Officer Rami V. brings to CopperGate 24 years of experience, most of them in the broadband networking and telecommunications industry. Prior to joining CopperGate, Rami V. 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 M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in finance, both from the Tel-Aviv University.

Rami Kopelman - Vice President of Business Development, Europe and Asia Rami K. 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 K. 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 K. holds a B.Sc. degree cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from Tel Aviv University.

Nadav Katsir - Vice President of Business Development & Support, Americas Nadav joined CopperGate in 2002 as Director 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.

Eran Schwartz - Vice President of Operations Eran joined CopperGate in 2005 and helped the company grow 10-fold and deliver more than 7 million chips. Before joining CopperGate, Eran was CEO of a 200+ person firm and managed purchasing and SAP implementation for a Nasdaq-listed company. He has a B.A. in Business Administration from the College of Management in Rishon Le-Zion.

Michael Weissman - Vice President of Marketing, Americas Michael brings over 20 years of high technology management experience. Previously, Michael was CEO of a venture-backed start-up; advised over 50 leading technology companies including Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Intel and Qualcomm; and managed a $680 million business unit for Canon. Michael is co-author of the Amazon business bestseller The Paradox of Excellence. He holds a B.S. in BA from Babson College and an MBA from UC Irvine.

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.