Bank of Israel expands search for new director-general

The Bank of Israel unexpectedly announced Tuesday it would be changing some of the criteria it had set in the tender published for the position of the Bank's director-general.

The Bank first published the tender in May, stating that a directors' locator committee has been tasked with finding suitable candidates to take over from acting Director-General Yaakov Danon, who announced he would be stepping down.

After recently announcing that the committee was met with a staggering number of applications for the bank's directorship, Stanley Fischer, Governor of the Bank of Israel, and the locator committee

announced that after reevaluating the bank's needs they had decided to reissue the tender's criteria.

The original requirements, for example, demanded applicants have a degree in at least one of the following: Finance, business, accounting, public administration or law; as well as several years of appropriate managerial experience.

The new requirements allow candidates to hold a degree in a different discipline, as well as at least eight years of experience. The committee, said the Bank's statement, will also look at the candidates' familiarity with the public sector, their financial expertise, negotiating skills, their knowledge of the public sectors' wage systems and labor relations, and their proficiency in the English language.

According to sources in the Bank, the changes were introduced in order to allow more people to apply for the position; but some of the Bank's employees claimed the move was actually prompted by the administration's desire to "lay the groundwork" for the candidate of their choice; an implication the Bank categorically denied.

The Bank's locater committee is headed by former PM's Office Director Ilan Cohen, who is joined by Sam Bronfeld, managing director of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange; Yuval Rachlevsky, former director of wages in the Ministry of Finance; Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel Prof. Zvi Eckstein; and attorney Tida Shamir, the Bank's legal advisor.