Board of Directors
Prof. Zvia Agur
PhD, Founder, Chairperson
Since founding Optimata in 2000, Prof. Agur has served as its Chief Scientific Officer and Chairperson. An eminent international biomathematician, Prof. Agur leads Optimata's research maintaining its leadership as a cutting-edge science-based company.
Prof. Agur also founded the basic research Institute for Medical Biomathematics, IMBM, where she serves as president and continues to conduct academic scientific research on related topics.
Prior to the establishment of Optimata, Prof. Agur co-founded the Israeli Society of Theoretical and Mathematical Biology (ISTMB) and the European Society of Mathematical Biology (ESMTB) in the aim of increasing public awareness for the significance of biomathematics to biomedical innovation. She served as President (ISTMB) and Board member (ESMTB) for over six years. Prof. Agur has held academic positions at the Weizmann Institute and Tel Aviv University in Israel, along with international visiting fellowships with Oxford University, Imperial College and others.
Prof. Agur has made major contributions to the theory of disease dynamics, chemotherapy optimization and vaccination policies. Her original and innovative research work has won national awards, and has been widely published in major scientific journals. She serves as editor of scientific journals, has organized leading international conferences and supervises numerous graduate students.
Prof. Agur holds a PhD in mathematical biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Michael Agur
Director and Chief Financial Officer
Since the founding of Optimata, Mr. Agur has served as its CFO and a member of its Board of Directors, overseeing the company’s finances and operations.
In addition, Mr. Agur continues his involvement with a European investment group that has completed private placements in key Israeli high-tech start-ups, including seed investments in the life sciences sector.
Mr. Agur has extensive business and finance experience, having held top executive positions in Israel’s Civil Service. Michael Agur holds a BA in Economics and International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Gil Bianco
Director
Mr. Bianco, age 57, served as the CEO of Agis Industries Ltd. from 2001 to 2003. Throughout his employment with Agis, Mr. Bianco actively participated in transforming Agis from a $15 million, local company with 150 employees, into an internationally known Pharmaceutical company with revenues of more than $350 million and 2000 employees. In 1992, as Agis' CFO, He helped lead the IPO of the company on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Mr. Bianco currently serves as a board member at the Tel Aviv’s stock exchange, at BioLineRx Ltd and Mazor Surgical Technologies Ltd (public companies), and at, Fischer Pharmaceutical-Labs, Novel Therapeutic Technologies Ltd., HealOr Ltd. and at Sol-Gel Technologies Ltd.
Mr. Bianco received his B.A. in Economics and Accounting degrees from Tel-Aviv University.
Prof. Ron S. Kenett
PhD, Director
Professor Ron S. Kenett, is CEO and Senior Partner of KPA Ltd., an international management consulting firm, Research Professor at the University of Torino, Torino, Italy and International Research Professor, Center for Risk Engineering, NYU Poly, New York, USA. His PhD is in Mathematics from the Weizmann Institute, where he worked on Population Genetics, Enzyme Kinetics and Biomathematics under the supervision of Prof Sam Karlin from Stanford University. He has over 25 years of experience in restructuring and improving the competitive position of organizations by integrating statistical methods, supporting technologies and modern human resource management systems.
Ron is one of the four founders of Babylon, the point and click internet information management tool and served on the board of several companies and organizations including Ergolight and IBG. He has published 4 books and over 160 scientific papers. Ron was awarded the Kaplan Prize in 1990 for introducing Quality Management to the Israeli Electronics Industry.
He is editor in chief for Europe of Quality Technology and Quantitative Management, Associate Editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series A, Statistics in Society and editor in chief of the Wiley Encyclopedia of Statistics in Quality and Reliability.
A partial list of companies he has consulted for includes: Intel, AT&T, AVX, EMC, National Semiconductors, Motorola, HP, SanDisk, Perrigo, Teva, BTG, Kamada, Orbotech, Eden Springs, The Israel Electricity Company, Applied Materials, Israel Aircraft Industries, EDS, IBM, Amdocs, ECI and various banks. He is Chairman of the Board of Takeoff, an organization whose mission is to help start-up companies develop business and marketing plans and establish strategic partnerships and is on the board of directors of several high tech companies.
