The Israeli Aerospace Industry (IAI) Board of Directors has selected Gabi Selosi as chairman despite not going through the preliminary process for the Government Company Bureau’s Senior Appointment Review Board, led by retired Judge Shramit Dotan.
Today, the former minister and UN Ambassador Girad Eldan announced at a meeting of the state-run IAI board of directors that they had frozen their candidacy for the position of chairman of the company for three months.
After the senior appointing committee of government company authorities decided not to approve Gabi Seroussi’s candidacy, the candidate promoted by Israeli Minister of Defense Katz, and Seroussi chose not to participate in the selection process, so Erdan proposed to the board that Seroussi must submit to the committee. However, the board voted against the proposal. Eldan later announced that he had temporarily withdrawn his candidacy because “considerations are political considerations, not good for the company.”
Seroussi has a majority in his favor on the IAI committee. Workers’ representatives, Eliyahu Ederi and Adi Rabib, as well as external directors Hava Schechter and Adi Belshazky, ended their term before seroussi and voted for him.
The vote in favor of Seroussi came despite this morning’s “glove” exposure of the fact that Seroussi competed for the post of IAI CEO in 2018, and a committee led by then-IAI Chairman Harel Locker disqualified his candidity.
This morning, as mentioned earlier, the government company authorities notified the IAI committee that Seroussi’s candidacy will not be approved by the Dotan committee. The authorities said, “The length of the candidate’s term can be extended to the third period only for exceptional cases and special reasons. At this time, the Minister’s attitude regarding this dwarf regarding their wishes has not been received.”
The IAI has been operating without a permanent chair since November. Before he replaced Israel Katz, former Minister of Defense Joa Garant agreed to the minister in charge of government company authorities David Amsalem, by appointing Girad Eldan as chairman. The decision was made in consultation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Eldan’s appointment as director of the IAI was made prior to the change of the Minister of Defense. However, since then, Katz has defied Eldan to appoint him to a post that gives him a security halo in a power struggle that anticipates the “day after Netanyahu” of the Likud Party.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News -en.globes.co.il- March 12, 2025.
©Copyright of Globals Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
