Avi Gabbay

Avraham "Avi" Gabbay (Hebrew: אַבְרָהָם "אָבִי" גַּבַּאי; born 22 February 1967) is an Israeli businessman and politician. He was CEO of the telecommunications company Bezeq from 2007 to 2013, then entered politics. He served as Minister of Environmental Protection between 2015 and 2016 as a member of the Kulanu party, before being elected leader of the Israeli Labor Party in 2017. He was elected to the Knesset in April 2019, but resigned as leader shortly afterwards. He did not run in the September 2019 elections. After leaving politics, Gabbay returned to the business world. He is currently the CEO of Partner.

Gabbay was born in the Baka neighbourhood of Jerusalem, the seventh of eight children born to Moïse and Sara Gabbay, Jewish immigrants from Morocco originally from Casablanca. His father worked for Bezeq, and in his youth he would also work at his father's company during his vacations. He studied at the Geulim primary school and attended high school at the Gymnasia Rehavia. After graduating from high school, he did his national service in the Israel Defense Forces in the Intelligence Corps, reaching the rank of Lieutenant. After leaving the army, he completed a BA in economics and an MBA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Gabbay began his career by working for the Ministry of Finance for four and a half years.

In 1998 he joined Bezeq as an assistant to CEO Ami Harel. Soon afterwards, he was appointed Vice President of Human Resources, and shortly after that, became the Vice President of Economics and Regulation. In 2003, he was appointed CEO of Bezeq International. In 2007, after Bezeq CEO Yaakov Gelbard was forced to resign, Gabbay was appointed CEO of Bezeq. He served in this position until he left the company in 2013. During his 14 years of working with Bezeq, Gabbay became wealthy, and is thought to have earned about 50 million shekels ($14.1 million). Shortly before entering politics, he tried and failed to buy control of El Al, Israel's national airline. In January 2020, Gabbay become CEO of telecommunications company Cellcom.

Prior to the 2015 Knesset elections he was amongst the founders of the new Kulanu party. Despite not being elected to the Knesset, he was appointed Minister of Environmental Protection in the Netanyanu government. On 27 May 2016, he submitted his resignation from the government in protest at the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Minister of Defense and the coalition's shift to the right.

On 29 December 2016 Gabbay announced he would join the Israeli Labor Party, and on 4 March 2017 announced he would run for the Labor Party leadership in the intra-party election for the leadership of the Israeli Labor Party, held in July 2017. The announcement was unusual because he was not a sitting Knesset member at the time. In the first round Amir Peretz came first with 32.7% and Gabbay came second with 27.08%; In the second round on 10 July Gabbay won with 52.4% of the vote. Since Gabbay was not a Knesset member, he led the party from outside of the Knesset. In addition, usually the head of the largest opposition party in the Knesset gets the official title of Leader of the Opposition. Instead Isaac Herzog, the outgoing leader of the Labor Party, retained the title of Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset. Following Herzog's resignation in July 2018, Tzipi Livni took over the post and following the dissolution of the Zionist Union, former Labor chief Shelly Yachimovich succeeded her.

On 1 January 2019 Gabbay unilaterally announced the dissolution of the Zionist Union and the cessation of partnership with Hatnuah.

In January 2019 his autobiography Hakol Efshari ("Everything is Possible") was published.