Eugene Kandel

Eugene Kandel was born in 1959 in Moscow

Eugene Kandel was born in Moscow in 1959 as Yevgeny Kandel. His father, Felix Kandel, is a writer and screenwriter, and his mother was an engineer. In 1977 the family immigrated to Israel after 4 years as refuseniks and settled in Jerusalem.

He earned a BA and an MA in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He then received an MBA and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

From 1989 to 1997 he taught at the business school of the University of Rochester. In 1997 he joined the Hebrew University, where he became a full professor in 2009 and studied financial markets. He was involved in the 1997 redesign of the Nasdaq trading rules and founded a center for financial markets at the university.

In 2009 he became head of the National Economic Council and economic adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, serving until 2015. In 2013 he presented a plan for drafting Haredi men into the IDF, known as the Kandel outline, which several parties rejected.

From 2015 to 2021 he was CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, and in April 2021 he became co-chairman of the Start-Up Nation Policy Institute. In July 2023 he was appointed chairman of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. He is married with 3 children.