Netafim, the leading international irrigation company and industry icon, has recently appointed David Margolin as the new global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), replacing Lior Peleg. This is Margolin’s second round with Netafim and before rejoining the company, he served for the past 14 years in various senior and top executive marketing positions, working for international tele-communication companies.
Margolin began his career at Netafim in 1995, first in the Kibbutz Hatzerim facility, getting hands-on knowledge of precision irrigation technologies. As the years progressed, Margolin combined his professional skills, art and technology and established the first digital marketing department, developing advanced interactive digital tools for product and solutions marketing. Later, Margolin served as the Global MARCOM and then as Director of Marketing, handling global tactical marketing, and being involved in all marketing aspects of the company.
In 2008 after 12 years in Netafim, Margolin left to work for Radvision, a global video conferencing company, which later was acquired by telecom giant Avaya. As part of the acquisition, Margolin and his family were relocated to the US. In his last position, before rejoining Netafim, Margolin served for 6 years as the VP Marketing and Management board member for Kramer Electronics, the 3rd largest worldwide professional audio-visual manufacturer.
“Coming back to work for Netafim was not on my career path, but I felt a lot of pride and gratitude working for an industry icon that was my first global experience in major scale global marketing work. So, when the opportunity to come back arose, I was happy to take the challenge”, Margolin stated.
Throughout his years of work outside Netafim, even in larger and more complicated industry organizations, Margolin followed Netafim’s activity, making use of the knowledge and experience he had gained while working there.
“I am returning after 14 years to a completely different company than the one I left in 2008. It has more than doubled in size, it is more globally spread, carries much more innovation and has a larger products/solutions portfolio”, Margolin mentioned.
According to Margolin, the company has evolved in almost every aspect, including outstanding internal processes, employees’ enhancement, global leadership, not just in the agriculture sector, but also in sustainability and improving food production growth.
“The core values of the company have become a cornerstone to whatever every employee worldwide is doing on a daily basis. The strong beliefs that what we do impacts billions of people on a basic level, like better nourishment, personal wellbeing and making agriculture accessible, is what makes this company so amazing”, Margolin said.
Beyond high-end smarter agriculture innovation, Netafim is designing and installing mind-blowing agricultural projects almost everywhere you can imagine; from working with major organizations, governments and NGOs, down to smaller farmers, enabling people to grow their own food and make a living.
The world is changing, and so is the climate. Geopolitical challenges and personal wellbeing are all impacting ongoing food production. For more than half a century Netafim has always been there, no matter how complicated or remote the challenge is. “As an industry leader, we are committed to be there and assist, fighting food production scarcity and delivering industry innovation in a sustainable manner, no matter where it is needed. I’m very excited to come back to the company that in many senses enabled me to be who I am today,” Margolin concluded.
We would like to congratulate David Margolin and wish him and Netafim many more years of success in keeping on making a difference.
