Success Stories - SanDisk Israel Ltd.
SanDisk Israel Ltd. - a Strategic Global Development Team
The Sandisk Israel Ltd. branch located at Tefen develops a leading product line that accounts for over half of the revenues of the worldwide corporation. Starting with a small operation of just 6 employees in 1996, the Tefen branch of the world’s largest supplier of flash memory data storage card products has grown into a strategic global development center.
SanDisk Israel Ltd. is a fully-owned subsidiary of the SanDisk Corporation. The corporation has some 4,600 employees worldwide and annual sales of $5 billion.
In 1990, Simon Stolero took a sabbatical from his position in Israel to work for Sandisk Ltd. in Santa Clara California, USA. The company was a start-up specializing in flash memory storage solutions, co-founded and managed by an Israeli entrepreneur – Dr. Eli Harari. During this time, Stef Wertheimer visited SanDisk as part of a visit to the US to encourage Israeli industrialists to return to invest in Israel. Dr. Eli Harari was taken by Stef’s message and promised to visit him in Israel when the time was right.
Some six years later Harari contacted Stolero and proposed that he set up a subsidiary of Sandisk in Israel. They planned to visit a series of venues suitable for hi-tech companies throughout the country and began their search at Tefen with a meeting with Stef Wertheimer. After visiting the Tefen Industrial Park, they immediately concluded their search and set up Sandisk Israel Ltd. in the Tefen Industrial Park shortly afterwards.
The company has recruited a high-quality team over the years, often attracting young, educated families to relocate to the vicinity of Tefen. The families chose to relocate to the region, attracted by the higher quality of life and a challenging future at SanDisk.
The development center in Tefen has expanded extensively over the years- reaching 130 employees in 2013. At each stage Sandisk took advantage of the flexible infrastructure of the Industrial Park in accommodating the company’s changing needs.
In the spring of 2013 Sandisk Tefen expanded its operations further to its own, purpose-built facility alongside the Tefen Industrial Park.