Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits Israel To Inaugurate Company’s Second-Largest R&D Center

This article was first published on The Times of Israel and was re-posted with permission.

With 700-plus direct employees in Israel, the Herzliya R&D center is Apple’s second-largest in the world, Apple CEO Tim Cook told local staff on Thursday.

And at a meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin a day earlier, the two leaders discussed not just the fact of Israel’s emergence as an important factor in the Apple ecosystem, but what the two entities had in common.

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Apple’s Herzliya R&D center

Cook, who was in Israel to inaugurate Apple’s new R&D center in Herzliya, touched on a number of major issues that concern both Israel and Apple — including environmental matters, education, diversity, and even Israeli Arabs.

That last issue was highlighted not by Cook himself, but by Johny Srouji, who accompanied his boss on the trip. Srouji — vice president for hardware technology — is an Israeli Arab who hails from Haifa. Before joining Apple in 2008 to head its chip-development team, Srouji worked at Intel and IBM, after graduating from the Technion.

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Cook speaking to Israeli employees

For Rivlin, Srouji’s ascent to one of the top tech positions in the world was a harbinger of what the government hopes will be a wave of similar accomplishments by people just like Srouji — Israeli Arabs educated in technology disciplines, working at the 300-some multinationals that have R&D and other facilities in Israel.

To continue reading this article on the TOI site, click here.

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