Environmental Social Governance (ESG)

Peter Mertens has served as the Chairperson of the Valens Board of the Directors since 2020. Mr. Mertens brings more than 35 years of experience in the automotive industry, having held senior positions with major OEMs, including CTO at Volvo Cars for six years, General Motors Global Line Executive for eight years, various management positions at Mercedes Benz, and member of the Board of Management of Audi AG, responsible for Technical Development and Design. Mr. Mertens also served as member of the Board of Directors of several companies, such as Polestar SE, Zenuety SE, Audi Sport GmbH, Audi China, Volkswagen Financial Service, Recogni Inc. and Faurecia. Mr. Mertens is the founding Chairman of AID/Argo AI Europe. Mr. Mertens serves as the chairman of the board of Aurora Labs and is a member of the board of directors of proteanTECS and V-HOLA. Mr. Mertens was a Fulbright-scholar at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, USA. He holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and a PhD in Production Engineering and Industrial Engineering from the University of Kaiserslautern where he served as a Member of the staff.

Gideon Ben Zvi has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Valens since 2020 and as a member of the board of directors of Valens since 2011 and as such, is deeply familiar with Valens, its business and technology. From 2007 to 2020, Mr. Ben Zvi served as a venture partner at Aviv Venture Capital. In the past five years, Mr. Ben Zvi served as a Chairman of the board of directors of BriefCam (until acquired by Canon), Chairman of the board of directors of Cellium, Chairman of the board of directors of enVerid Systems and co-founded AristagoraVC. Mr. Ben Zvi brings more than 30 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, having previously served as CEO in different companies and led three exit events. Mr. Ben Zvi has also served as a board member at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and board member and chair of committees at Jerusalem Transport Master Plan Team (JTMT). Mr. Ben Zvi holds a BSc is Computer Science and Math from Hebrew University Jerusalem (HUJI) and an MBA from HUJI.

Dror Jerushalmi co-founded and led Valens as its CEO for over 13 years, led its rounds of funding, and the adoption of Valens’ HDBaseT technology as a standard for connectivity in the audio-video and automotive markets. In parallel to his employment in Valens, Mr. Jerushlami serves as the CEO of Cellium. Mr. Jerushalmi earned his Bachelor’s and his Masters, Cum Laude in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ben-Gurion University, as well as his MBA from Heriot-Watt University, Israel branch.

Dr. Eyal Kishon has served as a member of the board of Valens since 2007. From 1996, Dr. Kishon has been the Founding & Managing Partner of Genesis Partners, an Israeli-based venture capital fund. Prior to that Dr. Kishon served as a Research Fellow in the Multimedia Department of IBM Science & Technology and in the Robotics Research Department of AT&T Bell Laboratories. Dr. Kishon serves as a director at AudioCodes (Nasdaq AUDC) and has served as a director at Allot Communications (Nasdaq ALLT). In addition, Dr. Kishon serves as a director at Riskified, JoyTunes, Worthy and TradAir. Dr. Kishon holds a B.A. in Computer Science from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Courant Institute at New York University.

Moshe Lichtman has served on the Board of Valens since 2017. Mr. Lichtman brings more than 35 years of product and leadership experience and 20 years of investment experience in the global high-tech industry. Mr. Lichtman is co-founder and co-managing partner of IGP Capital and serves on boards of its portfolio companies as well as boards of several other tech companies. Prior to that Mr. Lichtman was Corporate VP at Microsoft where he led several global consumer and enterprise businesses. As head of MSN’s international business in the late 90’s, Mr. Lichtman was responsible for quadrupling the business to become the #1 network in Europe, Canada, Australia and many other international markets. Under his leadership in the early 2000’s, Microsoft’s TV business became the leading provider of IPTV platforms to telecom operators globally. Upon returning to Israel in 2006, as President of Microsoft’s R&D center in Israel, Mr. Lichtman was responsible for turning the Israel operation into one of the three largest strategic innovation hubs outside the US. Mr. Lichtman was also among the leaders of the Windows 95 team and President of Softimage, a leader in media creation software. Prior to Microsoft, Mr. Lichtman held software development and management positions in several high-tech startups. Mr. Lichtman is the co-author of the best-selling book “The complete guide to the C language” and holds a BSc Cum Laude in Computer Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School.

Michael Linse has served as a member of the Board of Valens since 2018. Mr. Linse has also served as the founder and managing director of Linse Capital LLC since October 2015, a growth equity firm investing in late-stage technology companies, and Levitate Capital, a venture capital firm, since March 2017. Prior to founding Linse Capital, Mr. Linse served as a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (“KPCB”) from 2009 until March 2015. Prior to joining KPCB, Mr. Linse worked at Goldman Sachs for over a decade, most recently as Managing Director of the alternative energy investing team. Mr. Linse holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Adi Toledano Yarel serves as a general partner and CFO at TLV Partners, a leading Israeli venture capital fund. Ms. Toledano Yarel has two decades of experience with global financial management, private fundraising, merger & acquisitions and portfolio management. Before joining TLV Partners, Ms. Toledano Yarel was a partner CFO at Magma Ventures Partners for 14 years. Through her years as a general partner, Ms. Toledano Yarel has worked closely with dozens of portfolio companies helping them to grow from seeds to global market leaders. Ms. Toledano Yarel is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Israel, and holds a B.A. in Accounting and Business Administration from the College of Management of Tel Aviv, Israel.

Dr. Ker Zhang is a technology expert with over 30 years of hardtech experience as engineer, executive, entrepreneur, CEO, chairman and investor. He is one of the founders of PTK Acquisition Corp. He also advises Intel Capital and Kleiner Perkins and serves on several boards of their portfolio companies, and is the executive chairman of Crossbar Inc.

Prior, he was the CEO of VIA Telecom Inc from 2002 until it was acquired by Intel in 2015. He joined Intel afterward and serves as Vice President and General Manager of its CDMA product group.

Yahal Zilka has served as a member of the board of directors of Valens since 2007. Mr. Zilka is a co-founder of Magma Venture Partners (“Magma”) and since 1999, served as co-Managing Partner of Magma. Prior to co-founding Magma Venture Partners, Mr. Zilka served as CFO of VocalTec Communications and led it from seed to its public offering on NASDAQ. Mr. Zilka brings many years of experience as an entrepreneur, mentor and executive with strong financial, operational, and hands-on management experience, as well as strategic relationships with industry leaders. Mr. Zilka currently serves as Director on the boards of SightEra-Magisto and Indegy. Previously, Mr. Zilka was on the boards of Waze (acquired by Google, NASDAQ: GOOG), Onavo (acquired by Facebook, NASDAQ:FB), DesignArt Networks (acquired by Qualcomm, NASDAQ: QCOM) and Phonetic Systems (acquired by Nuance, NASDAQ: NUAN).