BLEND Appoints Yoav Ziv as New CEO

Israeli language services provider (LSP) BLEND has appointed a new CEO. Yoav Ziv, a former Amdocs executive with 27 years of experience in business and technology, has taken over for Yair Tal, BLEND’s CEO since 2019.

“I’m happy to hand off the reins to Yoav, who, given his extensive experience, is the best choice to lead BLEND into its next growth phase through additional acquisitions and new offerings,” Tal said in a press release about the transition.

During Tal’s five-year tenure, the company, founded in 2008, rebranded from One Hour Translation, and Tal led the privately-held LSP to profitability. He also oversaw a February 2021 funding round that raised USD 10m from Tel Aviv-based VC Fortissimo Capital.

Shortly after that funding round, in June 2021, BLEND acquired Atlanta-based GM Voices, a recorded-voice and audio localization provider whose most familiar work might be recording the voice behind Siri.

The February 2024 acquisition of fellow Israeli LSP Manpower Language Solutions upped BLEND’s headcount, with most of the MLS leadership joining BLEND’s team of 120. 

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Ziv, who was introduced to BLEND by the LSP’s investors, is not the only new face in BLEND’s C-suite — in November 2024, the LSP also added former PwC partner Heelee Kriesler to the team as Chief Customer Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Ziv, whose resume includes past leadership roles at Qualitest and Checkmarx, was quoted in the press release as saying, “As the industry experiences exciting technological advancements, it’s clear that there are significant opportunities ahead.”

These include BLEND’s latest product release, Flexi, a localization tool that combines LLMs, AI quality estimation, and linguists. According to a December 2024 press release announcing the release, content creators and software developers can set and adjust an acceptable level of translation quality and opt to use human editing only when necessary.