Kobi Alexander
| Kobi Alexander | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Jacob Alexander May 4, 1952 Kfar Saba, Israel |
| Residence | Windhoek, Namibia |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Known for | Founder of Comverse Technology |
Jacob "Kobi" Alexander (born May 4, 1952) is an Israeli-American businessman. He is the founder and the former CEO of New York-based Comverse Technology. In 2006, he was charged with multiple counts of fraud and related offenses pertaining to irregularities in trading of Comverse stock; he subsequently fled to Namibia, a nation which has no extradition treaty with the US.
Alexander founded Comverse Technology (NASDAQ: CMVT) in 1982 and built it up from a 3-person Israeli startup to employing over 5,000, becoming the leading provider of software and systems for telecommunication companies worldwide. Comverse’s success led to its inclusion in the NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500 indices.
Alexander was born on May 4, 1952, into a middle-class family in Kfar Saba, Israel. His mother was a school teacher, and his father an officer in the signal corps of the Israeli Defense Forces, and later, the Managing Director of the Israeli National Oil Company.
Following military service, Alexander enrolled in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, receiving a BA in Economics magna cum laude in 1977. In 1978 he traveled to the United States earning an MBA at New York University.
In his early years in New York, he met an electrical engineer and together with his brother in law, a professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, the three conceived voice mail technology and developed the idea of what was to become Comverse Technology. The founders understood already then that communications will be a big market, and pioneered the voice mail systems that today are used by telecoms worldwide to support telephony services.
In 1981, fresh with his NYU MBA, Alexander returned to Israel to bootstrap Comverse. In 1986, after struggling for over 4 years with the company reaching the brink of bankruptcy, the two other founders left their operational roles, and subsequently left the company.
Upon taking the helm, Alexander made three key strategic decisions:
Within a short amount of time, Comverse was back on its feet. A major breakthrough came when Alexander convinced Swiss telecom giant Ascom to invest US$6 million in the company in the mid eighties, providing Comverse the capital it needed to realize its dream. In 1986, Alexander was able to take Comverse public on the NASDAQ.
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