Executive Officers

Ido Schechter, CEO

Dr. Schechter has been with the company since 1996 and is serving as the Company's CEO since January 2002. Prior to that, Dr. Ido Schechter has been the Company's Vice President of Sales and Marketing from August 1996. From January 1995 until August 1996, Mr. Schechter served as General Manager of Super Image, an affiliate of the Company; which operates a form processing service bureau. From August 1993 to December 1994, Mr. Schechter oversaw the start-up of automatic form processing services at Israel Credit Cards, Ltd. From 1991 to 1993, Mr. Schechter was a research scientist at the Horticultural Research Institute of Ontario, Canada.

Mr. Schechter is the recipient of eight Honors and Scholarships, has published or presented more than twenty-five articles and is a Captain in the Israeli Air Force. Mr. Schechter received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Plant Physiology from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada and his B.Sc. from the Hebrew University in Israel.

Gili Shalita, CFO

Gili Shalita has been the CFO of TIS since August 2008. From August 2007 until she became Interim CFO, Ms. Shalita served as the Director of Finance of the Company. Prior to joining TIS, Ms. Shalita served as the Controller of PMC-Sierra Israeli branch (Formerly: Passave) since March 2005. From July 2003 until March 2005, Ms. Shalita served as risk and control manager of Intel Israel. Between the years 2000 and 2003, Ms. Shalita worked at Ernst & Young Israel, as a CPA in the high-tech practice group. Ms. Shalita is certified licensed public accountant (Isr.). She holds a B.A. in Economics and Accounting from the Tel Aviv University and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Bar Ilan University.

Ofir Shalev, VP R&D and CTO

Ofir Shalev leads all Top Image Systems research and development activities, and he is responsible for the company's technological roadmap. In this position Mr. Shalev is responsible of answering the current and future needs of the company by merging the two main developments efforts, advanced software engineering technologies and state of the art machine learning algorithms for data classification and recognition. Prior to this Ofir Shalev served as the company’s Director of Recognition for three years. During this period, Mr. Shalev was responsible for the development of Freedom, TIS' semi-structured data module.

Before joining TIS, Mr. Shalev served as a senior development leader at the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Mr. Shalev holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science (Magna cum laude) from the Open University of Israel with research focused on Machine Learning algorithms, and Bachelor of Science degree from the Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology.

Michael Schrader, MD TIS EMEA

Michael Schrader has served as the manager of TIS’s German operation since 2004. In this position, Mr. Schrader successfully established a solid operation with skilled sales and engineering teams able to respond to the demands of a highly competitive market, and develop superior standardized applications. Mr. Schrader has been with TIS since 1999, and has rapidly progressed within the company, serving as a software engineer, a technical team leader, an international strategic project manager and as the director of engineering for Europe.

Prior to joining TIS, Mr. Schrader was a software engineer at Siemens and owned a Document Management consulting and development business. Mr. Schrader holds a B.Sc. of Business Engineering/Administration and is an Associate Engineer of Siemens Technical College.

Omri Gelb, Executive VP

As Executive VP, Omri Gelb leads EMEA and US sales, marketing and business development activities. Mr. Gelb previously served as the Managing Director of TIS EMEA. In that capacity, Mr. Gelb quickly led the diverse and wide spread EMEA group into a strong, unified and growing team. He developed and implemented a sales strategy strongly focused on high value accounts and effective partnerships with distribution channels. In 2001, Mr. Gelb joined TIS as the USA and Canada Director of Sales. His work allowed the company to fortify its reputation as the top provider of Intelligent Document Recognition solutions.

Prior to joining TIS, Mr. Gelb represented Wapay, a start-up company in the US and was a Senior Account Manager at Micro Tempus, a Canadian software company in Montréal, Canada. Mr. Gelb holds a Bachelors of Commerce in International Business and Business Management from what is known today as the John Molson School of Business, at Concordia

Barry Richards, MD TIS UK

Barry Richards has been with TIS in the UK since 2007 and is serving as the Managing Director of TIS UK since August 2009, having previously held posts of Senior Business Development Manager and UK Sales Manager. Since joining TIS he has been successful in establishing new business partnerships and has won major projects in Central Government, Insurance and Retail sectors. Mr. Richards brings a great wealth of knowledge as he has worked in the data capture and document management industry since 1989. His experience includes the creation of a partner distribution channel for OCR products as well as the implementation of many in house and outsourced document and process management solutions throughout the UK and Ireland.

Prior to joining the document management industry, he held posts in the MOD and as an IBM shift leader and systems analyst.

Osamu Sakio, Representative Director, TIS Japan

Osamu Sakio has been the Representative Director of TIS Japan since its inception in April 2004. Prior to joining TIS Japan, in 1999, Mr. Osamu founded SunTrust International Co., Ltd, a private company that develops automated Inkan matching software together with the Israeli company e-Nkan. This software is still the only software which enables automated Inkan matching. Prior to that, Mr. Sakio worked for Saison Group as the Director of Seibu Department Store, the Director of Saison Corporation and as an Advisor to Saison Information Systems. In these positions, he was involved in restructuring Saison’s overseas operations in China, France, Italy, UK, and USA for more than 10 years.

From 1983 to 1988, Mr. Sakio served as the Treasurer of CCKK, a 100% subsidiary of Citicorp, and as Representative Director and Vice President of FNNS, a joint venture of Citibank and Nippon Shinpan. In 1978, Mr. Sakio joined American Express in NY and worked as Senior Internal Auditor. Mr. Sakio holds a Bachelor of Arts from the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo and MBA from IMEDE (currently IMD) Lausanne Switzerland. 

Alex Toh, MD TIS (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd

Alex Toh established Asiasoft Global in 2004, merging the new company with Deca Solutions Pte Ltd. A company he previously established to focus on development of enterprise applications as well as turnkey solutions, including Accounting and Freight Management systems. From 2004 to 2007, ASG, under the management of Mr. Toh, opened new offices around the Asia region, acquired associate companies, Research & Development in Capture, Content Management as well as solutions for Shared Services centers. Mr. Toh also secured several major governmental funds and R&D grants which enabled ASG to grow its intellectual property (IP) in this arena. In 2007, Mr. Toh negotiated the acquisition of ASG by TIS following which, he became the head of solutions provider powerhouse in the Far East with leadership in Imaging and Information Management technologies with presence in Asia's major countries.

Prior to establishing ASG, Mr. Toh founded Virtual Homes Pte Ltd, an online 3D / VRML company providing users with online 3D designs of their own homes. Mr. Toh is a graduate of the National University of Singapore with a degree from School Of Computing.

Izhak Nakar, Founder and Chairman of the Board

Izhak Nakar founded the Company and served as its Chairman of the Board and CEO from inception until May 2001. In 2005, he was re-elected as the Chairman of the Board and in this position is responsible for TIS’s strategic M&A activity. Mr. Nakar served in the Israel Air Force from 1970 to 1987, where he led various large-scale highly technical development projects, including leading a development team that worked in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force. He received his B.Sc. in Computer Science from Bar Ilan University in 1982, and an MBA from Tel-Aviv University in 1984. Mr. Nakar is a recipient of the “Israel Defense Award,” bestowed annually by the President of Israel, for the development of high-tech systems in the field of intelligence for the Israeli Defense Force. He also received the “Man of the Year Award” in Business and Management (‘95-’96) in recognition of his business accomplishments and contributions to the growth and development of Israeli high-tech companies. In 1998 , Mr. Nakar founded NIR4YOU Capital, a privately held investment company specializing in early stage investments in high–tech companies. NIR4YOU Capital has 14 companies on its portfolio including: ForesCout , e-mobilis ,TopGuard , Matearis , Video Codes ,SundaySky , Secur DI , MomSense etc. Three of the 14 companies were sold to large enterprises, including SAP and Microsoft . In 2004 Mr. Nakar was elected as a Board member of the Israel-Japan chamber of Commerce. .

Elie Housman

Elie Housman has been a director of the Company since May 2000. Mr. Housman joined InkSure in February 2002 as Chairman and also serves as a director of InkSure. Mr. Housman was a Principal at Charterhouse from 1989 until June 2001. At Charterhouse, Mr. Housman was involved in the acquisition of a number of companies with total sales of several hundred million dollars. Prior to Charterhouse, he was co-owner of AP Parts, a $250 million automotive parts manufacturer. Mr. Housman was also the Chairman of Novo Plc. in London, a leading company in the broadcast storage and services industry. Mr. Housman served as a director of deltathree, Inc. until December 31, 2003 and presently serves as a director of ICTS International, N.V., a prominent aviation security company and EVCI Career Colleges Incorporated. In addition, Mr. Housman serves as a director of Jazz Photo, Inc., and Bartech Systems International, Inc., which are both privately held companies in the United States.

Lyron Bentovim

Lyron Bentovim has been a Director since November 2008. Since August 2009, Mr. Bentovim has served as the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Financial Officer of Sunrise Telecom, a US company engaged in developing test and measurement solutions for telecom networks. Prior to joining Sunrise Telecom, Mr. Bentovim served as a managing member and a portfolio manager for SKIRITAI Capital LLC, an investment advisor based in San Francisco which holds approximately 13.3% of the issued and outstanding capital stock of the Company. He has over 15 years of industry experience, including his experience as a member of the board of directors at Three-Five Systems, Sunrise Telecom, and Argonaut Technologies. Prior to SKIRITAI Capital LLC, Mr. Bentovim served as the President, COO and co-founder of WebBrix Inc. Additionally, Mr. Bentovim spent time as a Senior Engagement Manager with strategy consultancies USWeb/CKS, the Mitchell Madison Group and McKinsey & Company. As a Senior Engagement Manager, Mr. Bentovim advised many Fortune 1000 companies in the financial services, insurance, retail and manufacturing sectors. During his consulting career, Mr. Bentovim assisted companies in exploring and developing solutions in the areas of strategic planning and operational improvements. Mr. Bentovim is experienced in evaluating Global 500 organizations and implementing strategies designed to streamline processes, reduce inefficiencies and achieve significant overhead reductions. Mr. Bentovim has a MBA from Yale School of Management and a Law degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Asi Karfiol

Asi Karfiol served in various positions in the field of Venture Capital From 2001 through 2007. Mr. Karfiol is serving as General Partner at Hyperion Israel Venture Partners. From 1995 through 2001 Mr. Karfiol held various Vice President positions at Ascend Venture Capital, an Israeli Venture Capital Fund, and at ITI, an American-Israeli Investment Company. Prior to that, Mr. Karfiol served as Marketing Manager for the Keter Plastics Group and as General Manager of a strategic international marketing consulting firm for leading Israeli corporations. Mr. Karfiol holds a BSc (summa cum laude) in Electrical Engineering and an MBA (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University. Mr. Karfiol possesses professional competence as required by the Companies Law and regulations deriving thereof.

Lior Lurye

Lior Lurye was elected to serve as an external director of TIS in February 2009. Since 1999 Ms. Lurye is CEO and owner of Lior Lurye Computer Applications Ltd.and controls Nituah Management Services Ltd. In those capacities she has engaged in the provision of technical and business counsel to companies with regard to information systems, cellular application systems, Internet, CRM and telephony, call centers and automatic services on the Internet.
She is also active in foreign real estate investments. She has an Executive MBA, cum laude, from the University of Tel Aviv and a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Touro College.