Executive Management

Russell Ellwanger
Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Ellwanger was appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2005. Previously, from 1998 to 2005, he served in various executive positions for Applied Materials Corporation, including Group Vice President, General Manager of the Applied Global Services (AGS) division from 2004 to 2005, and Group Vice President, General Manager of the CMP and Electroplating Business Group from 2002 to 2004. Mr. Ellwanger also served as Corporate Vice President, General Manager of the Metrology and Inspection Business Group from 2000 to 2002, during which he was based in Israel. From 1998 to 2000, he served as Vice President of Applied Materials’ 300-mm Program Office, USA. Mr. Ellwanger also served as General Manager of Applied Materials’ Metal CVD Division from 1997 to 1998 and from 1996 to 1997, he served as Managing Director of CVD Business Development, during which he was based in Singapore. In addition, Mr. Ellwanger held various managerial positions at Novellus Systems, Inc. from 1992 to 1996 and at Philips Semiconductors from 1980 to 1992.


Oren Shirazi
Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President of Finance

Mr. Shirazi was appointed Chief Financial Officer in November 2004, after serving as Controller since July 2000. He joined Tower in October 1998 serving as Vice Controller. Previously, he was employed as an Audit Manager in the accounting firm of Ratzkovski-Fried & Co., which merged into Ernst & Young (Israel), commencing August 1995. Mr. Shirazi is a Certified Public Accountant in Israel (CPA), and has an MBA in Business Management from the Graduate School of Business at Haifa University with honors and a B.A. in Economics and Accounting from Haifa University.


Itzhak Edrei
Executive Vice President of Business Groups, Corporate Strategy and Business Development, Marketing, Design Enablement and R&D

Dr. Itzhak Edrei was appointed Executive Vice President of Tower Business Units and Business Development in September 2008. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Product Lines and Worldwide Sales since August 2005. In 1996, Dr. Edrei established the Research and Development Group at Tower. He was the Director of R&D and later Vice President of R&D from August 2001. From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Edrei served as Tower’s Device and Yield Department Manager. Prior to joining Tower, he was employed by National Semiconductor as Device and Yield Section Head. Dr. Edrei received his B.Sc. in Computer Science and Physics and his Ph.D. in Physics from Bar Ilan University in Israel in 1983 and 1988 respectively, and from 1988-1990, he did his Post Doctorate at Rutgers University, NJ.


Chuck Fox
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Corporate Marketing

Mr. Fox was appointed Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Corporate Marketing in September 2008 and previously served as Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Jazz Semiconductor since July 2007. His background includes senior positions at Intel and Xilinx coupled with extensive fabless startup experience in the wireless, networking and multimedia markets with DSP, FPGA, ASIC and High Speed Analog/Mixed-Signal technologies. At Xilinx, Mr. Fox was instrumental in growing it from a small private company into a multi-billion dollar industry FPGA leader both as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and as Division GM. He also spent 10 years in various management positions at Intel. Mr. Fox earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an MBA with honors from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and completed the AEA Executive program at Stanford University.


Ephie Koltin
Senior Vice President, Worldwide Operations

Mr. Koltin was appointed Senior Vice President and Fab 1 Manager in April 2007, having served previously as Vice President of Business Development since August 2005. He also served as Vice President, General Foundry and Mixed Signal Technology since 2003 and as Senior Director, FAB2 Process Engineering since 2000. From 1996-1999, Mr. Koltin served in several senior positions as Director, NVM Technology, CIS Technology and ERS Manager, Fab 1. Prior to joining Tower, he was employed at National Semiconductor and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Mr. Koltin holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Materials Engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.


Nati Somekh Gilboa
Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary

Nati Somekh Gilboa was appointed Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary in September 2008, having served as Corporate Secretary and General Counsel since March 2005, and as Associate General Counsel since May 2004. From 2001-2004, she was employed by Goldsobel & Kirshen, Adv., specializing in the areas of intellectual property, biotechnology and corporate law. Ms. Somekh Gilboa holds an LL.M and J.D. from Boston University and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University. She is a member of the Israeli Bar Association and the New York Bar.


Dalit Dahan
Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Information Technology

Ms. Dahan was appointed Vice President of Human Resources in April 2004, and IT Manager in January of 1998. She served as Director of Personnel, Recreation & Compensation from 1998 through 2004 and as Compensation and Benefits Manager from 1993 to 2004. Previously, she was employed by ORS, a manpower company as the manager of the company’s northern branch responsible for all recruitment activities and the daily personnel and compensation activities of approximately 150 employees. Ms. Dahan holds a B.A. in Social Science from Haifa University, and an MBA from the University of Derby.


Rafi Mor
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Newport Beach

Mr. Mor was appointed Senior Vice President and General Manager, Newport Beach in September 2008. Since April 2007, he was Vice President of Business Development for Tower Semiconductor. Previously, he served as Tower’s Vice President and Fab 2 Manager since August 2005, and as Fab 1 Manager since March 2003. From November 2000 to March 2003, Mr. Mor served as Senior Director of Process Device & Yield of Fab 1. From 1998 to 2000, he served as Director of Equipment Reliability & Support of Fab 1. Prior to this, he was employed by National Semiconductor in various engineering and management capacities. Mr. Mor earned his B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Ben Gurion University in Israel.


Marco Racanelli
Senior Vice President and General Manager, RF and High Performance Analog Business Group and Aerospace & Defense Business Group

Dr. Racanelli was appointed Senior Vice President & General Manager, RF & High Performance Analog Business Group and Aerospace & Defense Group in September 2008. Previously, he served as Vice President of Technology & Engineering, Aerospace & Defense General Manager for Jazz Semiconductor. Prior to Jazz, Dr. Racanelli held several positions at Conexant Systems and Rockwell Semiconductor since 1996 in the area of technology development where he helped establish industry leadership in SiGe and BiCMOS and MEMS technology, and built a strong design support organization. Prior to Rockwell, Dr. Racanelli worked at Motorola, Inc., where he contributed to bipolar, SiGe and SOI development for its Semiconductor Products Sector. Dr. Racanelli received a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University. He holds over 35 U.S. patents.


Avi Strum
Vice President and General Manager of Specialty Business Unit

Dr. Strum was appointed Vice President and General Manager of the Specialty Business Unit in September 2008. He joined Tower in December 2004 and served as General Manager of Tower’s design center in Netanya and Device and Integration Department Manager. In July 2005, he was appointed as General Manager of the CMOS sensor and Non-volatile Memory (NVM) BU. Prior to joining Tower, Dr. Strum served as the President and COO of TransChip Inc. from 2001 to 2004. From January 1996 to January 2001, he was with Intel Corp., both in Israel and Santa Clara, CA, and served as the Quality and Reliability Manager of the Processors Division of Intel Israel. From 1990 to 1996, he was the R&D Manager of SCD and was in charge of all the Infrared Detectors development in SCD. Dr. Strum received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in EE from the Technion -Israel Institute of Technology in 1985 and 1990 respectively.


Zmira Lavie
Vice President, Process Engineering R&D and General Manager, Technology Optimization Process Services Business Unit

Ms. Lavie was appointed Vice President of Process Engineering R&D and General Manager of Technology Optimization Process Services in 2007. She has over 20 years experience with Si processing technologies and management in fabrication as well as in the R&D arena. She joined the R&D Group as Thin Film Section Manager when it was established in 1996. In her current position, she is leading the R&D Process Group, MEMS and manages the process transfer activity with a target of establishing customer specific processes in Tower’s fabs. Previously, Ms. Lavie served at National Semiconductor as Thin Film Process Engineer. She has expertise in thin films metallization and process integration and has several patents within this area. Ms. Lavie received a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Technion, Haifa.


Don Cerney
Vice President, Worldwide Quality and Reliability

Mr. Cerney was appointed Vice President of Worldwide Quality and Reliability in December 2008 and previously served as Director of Quality and Reliability for Jazz Semiconductor since 2002. He has held several key positions with Jazz and its predecessors, Conexant Systems and Rockwell International since 1979, such as Director of Process and Integration Engineering, Director of Process and Equipment Engineering, Manager of Process Engineering - Etch, and Manager of Process Engineering - Diffusion. Mr. Cerney received a B.S. with honors in Electrical Engineering from California State University, Long Beach and an M.B.A. from University of Phoenix. He is also a Six Sigma Black Belt.

 
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