Strauss reported this evening (Monday) to the stock exchange that CEO Giora Bar Dea announced his resignation from the company. Bar Dea has served as the group’s CEO since 2018, and in total worked for the group for 26 years. Bar Dea will end his position “at a date agreed upon with the company, after the process of locating and appointing a new CEO is completed,” according to the report.
Globes learned that Bar Dea’s departure was done by agreement and not as a hostile step that is expected to lead to legal proceedings. Bar Dea, who is considered a respected CEO who led many processes at Strauss, expressed a desire to leave after the recall at the Elite factory earlier this year, for which he took responsibility again at the press conference convened by the company’s senior executives in which they apologized to the public.
At the end of April, Strauss announced a call to return chocolate products produced in the factory since February 20 of this year. The event became the largest recall case in the history of the economy, with extensive financial consequences for the company. Strauss has since stopped the operation of the factory, which has not yet returned to operation. About two weeks ago, the company announced another limited recall after a small number of cookies that were included in the original recall arrived as a result of human error at individual points of sale.
The initial estimates for the impact of the event on the company’s net profit for the entire year were between 170 and 230 million shekels. In the first quarter of the year there was a sharp drop of 80% in the net profit rate.
“An extraordinary 26-year journey”
In the stock exchange report, the message of the retiring CEO to the chairman of the company’s board of directors, Ofra Strauss, was published. “After 26 extraordinary years, including about 5 years as the company’s CEO, I decided that the time had come to retire and pass the position on to a new CEO of his choice. I committed when I took office to prepare the company for the challenges of the future, and that’s what we did, together. We completed a vision design last summer New to the company, we formulated a strategic plan that was approved and communicated at the beginning of 2022, and these days we are launching the work plans and the operational model derived from the strategy for the coming years. The company has an avenue of amazing managers and employees who will take the reins in the coming years. As before, I am here until a new CEO is found and arrives And I will do my best to assist in his entry. Strauss was and will remain a home for me.”
“Gyora’s journey with us at Strauss is an extraordinary 26-year journey, a journey rich in achievements, of exceptional leadership values, tremendous love for the company and its people, a journey of managerial courage and the audacity to take every arena he has managed over the years to a leap forward,” said the company’s chairman Ofra Strauss in response to Bar Dea’s message.
“Gyora has a unique part in the success and in every milestone of a group, certainly during the period when I serve as the chairman. Giora felt that it was time to make a change, a personal change and a change in the group. Giora will continue to lead Strauss in the coming months and thus will allow us to have an orderly and professional process to find a replacement for the position.”