Career
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:
- Selling strictly to telecoms, who in turn represented hundreds of thousands of end user licenses for Comverse systems, and who enabled Comverse to piggyback on their growth.
- Focusing on markets outside the U.S. where competition was weaker, enabling Comverse to establish leadership in certain regions early on.
- Raising financing when market conditions were favorable.
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.
In 1997, Comverse bought its main competitor for US$700 million, at the time the largest acquisition to date for an Israeli based company. Comverse Technology, Inc., which owns 100% of Comverse, also owns majority equity in several other companies, including Verint and Ulticom. It has over US$1.5 billion in sales to over 450 telecoms in 120 countries supporting more than 450 million subscribers worldwide. As of March 2006, the company employed approximately 6000 people in over 50 countries, had a market capitalization of approximately US$6 billion, and over US$2.2 billion in cash.
Alexander is also an avid sports fan. He formerly owned 25% of the Israeli basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C..
Read more about this topic: Kobi Alexander
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