Ovad Yassine Tipped to Lead Microsoft Israel R&D

Ovad Yassine, currently a Vice President at Microsoft overseeing sovereign cloud services and AI for nations outside the U.S., is a leading candidate to succeed Michal Braverman-Blumenthal as the head of Microsoft's Research and Development in Israel. Braverman-Blumenthal announced her departure last month, concluding a six-and-a-half-year tenure leading the Israeli R&D center and 13 years with the company overall.

While Braverman-Blumenthal also led the development of cybersecurity products for Microsoft during her time in Israel, Yassine's expertise lies in sovereign cloud and AI. This sector involves dedicated cloud infrastructure and AI designed to give countries full control over their data and processing, adhering to local laws. Yassine received a significant promotion in January, becoming a Vice President responsible for hundreds of employees globally and leading strategic engagement with governments and sovereign organizations.

Yassine's appointment to this global role in January is notable, placing him in a position to work with countries that may not have diplomatic ties with Israel. His career began as an algorithms developer at Israeli firms Sivva and Schema, followed by a directorial role in cloud infrastructure engineering at Germany's SAP. He joined Microsoft to lead innovation and incubation, spending over seven years heading the Azure Edge development team before taking on the sovereign cloud role late last year.

Yassine will need to navigate potential criticism within Microsoft regarding its commercial agreements with the Israeli defense establishment. Tensions flared about a year ago when a report revealed the use of Microsoft's cloud servers by Unit 8200 for counter-terrorism operations, leading Microsoft to terminate its cloud contract with the unit. Microsoft Israel's commercial operations function separately from its R&D activities. Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.