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Daniel Sapir
(Photo: Yoav Alon)
Position: CEO of Cellcom
Personal: 51 years old, married with 4 children, lives in Jerusalem
Previous positions: CEO of ICT, VP of Business at Pelephone, VP of Sales at HOT
One more thing: his late father, Yochanan Sapir, a native of Kfar Malal, was a graduate of the mythological 101st unit founded by Arik Sharon
The boundary between the definition of prominent shareholders and controlling shareholders is very thin in this case of Cellcom. Those who led Sapir’s selection were the Zalkind brothers. In Dabuka, which owns DSK, Cellcom is the holding they trust and is closer to their field of business. In 2020, they succeeded in selling Golan Telecom to Cellcom for a profit of NIS 350 million.
The brothers, who in recent years have become a multi-armed octopus in the business world in Israel, with holdings in retail, real estate and infrastructure and air conditioning, hope to restore success with Golan at Cellcom as well. As the next CEO for them.
Sapir (51) comes with a background in communications, and has served in marketing and sales positions at Hot, Barak 013, and Pelephone, where he worked under Gil Sharon, chairman of Bezeq Today. Sharon met at least once with Danny Zalkind and warmly recommended Sapir. The Zalkinds at Golan Telecom and also led the company as chairman, improved and brought Elco’s significant profit in the sale transaction.
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Cellcom’s controlling shareholders Danny Zalkind and Mikey Zalkind, chairman Doron Cohen and director of the Dynamics network who was a candidate for CEO, Eli Addi
(Photos: Israel Harari, Sivan Poppy, Ohad Zweigenberg)
But for the past ten years Sapphire has been in a relatively gray area, call centers and customer service. The Livnat brothers appointed him CEO of the ICT company they owned in 2012. At the time, it was a loss-making company with 1,700 employees. Tiberias Beer Sheva Carmiel and more.
ICT is today a very profitable company, whose profits are estimated at tens of millions of shekels, and employs 11,000 people. It is a market leader in its field, by a considerable margin from its competitors, Tlaol and Bezeq Online and others. The Zelkinds were looking for a manager who would perform the same process at Cellcom, streamlining, closing or dealing with its losing areas, most notably television and landlines, and most importantly: prepare it for sale.
Zalkind-led DSK intends to sell Cellcom in the next two years. Until three months ago, the value at which Cellcom was traded today could have been relevant to them as a selling price, but after soaring in the last quarter, together with Partner, the two believe that with an operational change it will double its profits Digital, it will be possible to sell it at a higher value.
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At the meeting itself, Chairman Doron Cohen, together with the company’s VP of Human Resources, presented the resumes of Sapir, Eddie and Shatui, who were the final candidates. Eran Shinar, the committee’s representative on the board (does not work for Cellcom), presented a number of problematic points in Sapir’s candidacy, including the selection process and the candidates’ interviews. It was actually the former chairman of the Securities Authority, Shmuel Hauser, who serves as a foreigner on the board and a kind of responsible adult, who reassured the boy and claimed that he did not see any problem in the way the procedure was done.
Surprisingly, despite the things, Hauser was the one who supported Eddie in the vote and not Sapir, as well as the boy himself who supported Eddie. It is possible that the committee estimates that Addi, who is in charge of Cellcom’s successful Dynamics network division, which he manages, would have cooperated more with them in the streamlining processes that await the company, than Sapir, who comes from outside and does not know the company’s internal DNA.
Sapir is expected to lead an streamlining process that may also be aggressive and include employee reductions. Calcalist has learned that one of the losing areas in Cellcom is the field of fixed telephony, and one of the tasks for Sapir or any other CEO who was elected is to close the division or reduce it significantly.
The CEO will also have to make a decision about the future of TV at Cellcom, and the decision may be to focus on fiber deployment with Disney’s entry into the country along with Amazon and alongside Netflix, in a way that shifts consumer focus to streaming operations. This will allow Cellcom to invest less in content.
Sapir, whose annual salary in ICT was more than NIS 4 million, according to estimates, agreed to settle for a lower salary in order to fulfill a dream that exists among quite a few managers who grew up in the field: to run a large communications company. His salary at Cellcom will be significantly lower than that, but will include options. He will try to take advantage of his interpersonal skills and being a “man of the people” to recruit alongside him the existing management part of which is already on the way to other companies, along with recruiting new executives.
As it has changed the DNA of ICT, and managed to recruit low-wage callers in a difficult market, including 2,000 from the Arab sector and a thousand callers from the ultra-Orthodox sector, Sapir will also try to replicate the achievement at Cellcom. Gabay managed to earn NIS 6 million in the quarter for the first time in a while. In the face of competition from Gabay and Rodev’s partner, it will not be easy, but for the Zalkinds, Sapir is the one who should bring Cellcom to the value they intend to sell – NIS 4 billion.
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