Orni Petruschka

Orni Petruschka was born in 1958

Orni Petruschka was born in 1958 and grew up in Kiryat Ono. His father is businessman Yoram Petruschka and his mother is Tzila, daughter of Yaakov Yehoshua and sister of A. B. Yehoshua.

He completed flight course 87 as a fighter pilot. He served in Squadron 147 and as an instructor at the flight school, then shortened his career service under his contract. Base commander Yaakov Terner removed him from flying, and he served in ground roles until his discharge.

He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Technion and a master's degree from Cornell University. He then worked at Bellcore in the United States. After returning to Israel in 1990, he headed optical communications systems engineering at ECI Telecom.

In 1993 he co-founded Scorpio with Rafi Gidron, which was sold to U.S. Robotics in 1996 for 72 million dollars. In 1997 the two founded Chromatis Networks. Lucent bought it in 2000 in a stock deal valued at about 4.75 billion dollars.

He later turned to public work. He supports a two-state solution, co-founded The People's Voice initiative with Ami Ayalon, and in 2009 co-founded Blue White Future and Round Up for Good. He chairs the Molad center, co-chairs the Abraham Initiatives, and is active in the protest against the judicial reform. He is married with 3 daughters.