Michael Laor -
Chairman of the Board,
CEO and Co-Founder
Michael Laor established Compass-EOS in 2006. Prior to that Michael worked for Pitango Venture Capital as a Venture Partner. Michael was also a Director of Engineering and Architecture of Cisco Systems, where he worked for over 11 years. In 1997, he initiated, built and has since that time, managed the Cisco Systems Development Center in Israel, growing it from a one person to an over 500 people operation.
Michael has experience of over 20 years in the computer and data communication industry, and eight patents registered in his name.
Michael has an M.B.A. from San Jose University and a B.Sc.E.E. from Ben-Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel.
Michael Mesh - Ph.D
Chief Science Officer
and Co-founder
Dr. Michael Mesh has extensive expertise in Datacom, Telecom, Fiber Optics and DWDM with over 25 years of experience in the industry. Dr. Mesh is the owner of over 40 patents and co-author of numerous publications and two books. He is co-founder and CSO of Compass-EOS.
Before Compass-EOS, Dr. Mesh was co-founder and CTO of PacketLight Networks. In the five years prior to joining PacketLight, Dr. Mesh held leading positions in different Israeli companies. He led the R&D activity for optical transmission systems including pioneering work on WDM at Tadiran Telecommunications and Seabridge Networks.
In the course of his career, Dr. Mesh led optical development activities at the Tel-Aviv University and academic research institutes in the former Soviet Union.
Dr. Mesh holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics. His Ph.D. work was done in the area of Physical and Quantum Electronics.
Aaron Mankovski -
Board member
(Pitango Venture Capital)
Mr. Aaron Mankovski's tenure in venture capital started in 1996. He co-founded Eucalyptus Ventures in 1997, and has served as Managing Director since that time. He joined the Pitango team as a Managing Director with the combination of the Eucalyptus and Pitango management groups in April 2000.
Mr. Mankovski has 16 years of experience in Executive Management (CEO, Sales and Marketing) in the high-technology sector in Israel and abroad. Prior to founding Eucalyptus, he served as Corporate Vice President of Orbotech Ltd.(NASDAQ: ORBK), responsible for worldwide operations, sales and customer support (approximately 500 people on four different continents).
Prior to assuming that position, Mr. Mankovski served as President and CEO of Orbotech Inc., where he also guided the merger of Orbot and Optrotech that led to the establishment of Orbotech. He previously was a sales executive at IBM. He also served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force.
Mr. Mankovski holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Statistics from Tel Aviv University.
Mr. Mankovski served on the Board of Directors of Chromatis Networks (sold to Lucent for $4.75 billion). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Optimal Test, Proficiency, PacketLight Networks, Precede Technologies, Kilopass Technology Inc, Negevtech, Civcom and Friend.
Arad Naveh -
Board Member
(Benchmark Capital)
Arad, a U.S. and Israeli citizen, has extensive operating and venture capital experience in both Silicon Valley and Israel. Arad's Investment interests include Enterprise S/W, Digital Media, Networking and Internet Infrastructure. Prior to joining Benchmark, Arad was a director of business development at Cisco, where he was responsible for investment and M&A activity in Israel.
Before Cisco, Arad was the founder and CEO of Class Data, which was acquired by Cisco in May 1998. Arad is based in Benchmark's Tel Aviv office
Bradford Wurtz -
Board Member
Brad Wurtz is a Partner of the Palo Alto office of Egon Zehnder International, and is a core member of the global Telecommunications and Technology practice.
Brad has led board and senior-level searches for early-stage as well as established public companies. Among his recent clients are Cisco, Nortel, Openwave, and Verigy.
Prior to joining Egon Zehnder International, Brad spent 3 years with Caspian Networks, initially as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, and then as President and CEO. Prior to this, Brad was a co-founder of a venture capital fund with two other partners. Brad also spent 10 years with Cisco systems in a variety of manufacturing and product leadership roles, including Vice President and General Manager of the Carrier Packet Voice Business unit and Vice President and General Manager of the Multiservice Switching Business Unit.
Brad received his MBA from Stanford University and his Bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley.